The U.S. EPA on Sept. 17 published updated small refinery exemption (SRE) data that reflects the denial of 54 gap year SRE petitions announced by the agency on Sept. 14. The data also shows seven new SRE petitions have been filed in recent weeks, including five new gap year SREs.

One new gap year SRE was filed for each compliance year 2011 through 2015. There are now 17 gap year SRE petitions pending, including two SRE petitions filed for compliance year 2011, two SRE petitions filed for compliance year 2012, three SRE petitions filed for compliance year 2013, four SRE petitions filed for compliance year 2014, three SRE petitions filed for compliance year 2015, one SRE petition filed for compliance year 2016 and two SREs filed for compliance year 2018.

The gap year SRE petitions were filed by small refineries in an effort to circumvent a January 2020 ruling by Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals that determined the agency cannot extend SREs to any small refinery whose earlier, temporary exemptions had lapsed. Information released by the EPA on Sept. 14 seems to indicate the agency will deny the remaining gap year SREs once required analysis is complete.

Since the agency last updated its SRE data on Aug. 20, small refiners have also filed one additional SRE petition for compliance year 2019 and one for compliance year 2020. As of Sept. 17, EPA data shows a total of 29 SRE petitions have been filed for compliance year 2019 and four have been field for compliance year 2020. All 2019 and 2020 SRE petitions are still pending.

Additional SRE data is available on the EPA website.