Renewable Energy Group’s New CEO: C.J. Warner
by Jim Lane
In Iowa, white smoke has emerged from the Renewable Energy Group (REGI) conclave: Tesoro EVP and former Sapphire Energy CEO C.J. Warner has been named chief exec of Renewable Energy Group, at a pivotal moment for biodiesel in Washington and around the world and amidst a boom for renewable diesel like the world has never seen.
REG has been making good progress with Wall Street under interim CEO Randy Howard and its share price has been on the rise, and the plants have been humming along nicely churning out hundreds of millions of gallons of biodiesel and the liquid gold...
EPA Slashes Corn Ethanol Targets Under Proposed Renewable Fuel Standard
Renewable Diesel Takes Smaller Cut Jim Lane “EPA continues to assert authority under the general waiver provision to reduce biofuel volumes based on available infrastructure,” says BIO. “This is a point that will have to be litigated. It goes against Congressional intent.” In Washington, the EPA released its proposed standards for 2014, 2015, and 2016 and volumes for renewable fuels. The volumes, as widely expected, include substantial reductions from the statutory standards in the original 2007 Energy Independence & Security Act. The EPA also released a 2017 proposed standard for biomass-based diesel. Yet, while attracting significant...
DAR the Rins Blow!
by Debra Fiakas CFA Last week the management of Darling Ingredients (DAR: NYSE) staged a webinar on its opportunities in biofuels. Darling produces biodiesel in Kentucky and Canada and is in a renewable diesel joint venture with Valero Energy (VLO: NYSE) in Louisiana. As a recycler of wastes and excess from the food production processes, the production of energy with organic feedstock is a logical extension of Darling’s collection and aggregation infrastructure. The event did not do much for Darling’s share price, but the presentation triggered a few questions about RINs - shorthand for...
Hither and Yon: Transmission and Biofuels
In the most recent two installments of Energy Tech Stocks' interview with me cover my views on transmission stocks, and biofuel stocks. Readers of AltEnergyStocks know that I am a big fan of electricity transmission, a theme I keep coming back to. You also know that I have a very ambivalent relationship with both ethanol and biodiesel. So I liked Bill's transmission article, but I just wasn't able to convey to him the subtleties of how I feel about biofuels. But he got one thing right: the owners of biofuel feedstock are likely going to be the biggest winners....
EPA Reneges on Trump’s Biofuels Deal
by Jim Lane
“EPA Reneges on Trump’s Biofuels Deal”, said the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association in reacting to the US Environmental Protection Agency’s new plans for fulfilling federal renewable fuel requirements. EPA released a proposed supplemental rule for the Renewable Fuel Standard today, and the bioeconomy is up in arms, and the outrage is centered in farm country, once a Trump bastion of support.
“IRFA members continue to stand by President Trump’s strong biofuels deal announced on Oct. 4, which was worked out with our elected champions and provided the necessary certainty that 15 billion gallons would mean 15 billion gallons, even after...
Propel Fuels’ Sales of Neste Renewable Diesel Jump 15x
Jim Lane West Coast renewable fuel retailer says the launch of 100% drop-in renewable diesel has spiked sales on a per-outlet basis 5X jump in renewable content, and 3X jump in gallons sold. In California, Propel Fuels is reporting a 15X jump in per-outlet sales of renewable fuel for diesel engines, based on a 3X increase in gallons sold of its new Diesel HPR fuel and 5X increase in renewable content for Diesel HPR (100% renewable content, vs the 20 percent renewable content in B20 biodiesel, which Propel formerly sold). With the news, Propel is expanding...
Waste Vegetable Oil: A Slick Way to Biofuel Your Portfolio
In August, I argued that Biodiesel stocks could be in trouble from more efficient ways to turn the oils and fats they use as feedstock into fuel, and concluded the article by saying that the likely winners are suppliers of oils and fats, not the processors. James Kingsdale, of Energy Investment Strategies has been thinking along the same lines. Last week he wrote an excellent overview of the major biofuels industries, including some stock picks. One of those stock picks was the diamond in the rough I wish I had known about when I wrote Biodiesel's Nightmare: Renewable Diesel...
Aemetis: Indian Breakthrough, California Expansion
Aemetis, Inc. (AMTX: NasdaqCM) just announced sales of biodiesel to gas stations in India. The sales follow on the heels of a significant ruling in November 2018, by the Bombay High Court to remove restrictions on biodiesel that had barred direct to consumer sales by biofuel manufacturers. The breakthrough into the India market is significant for the company, which has been operating a 50-million gallon integrated chemicals and fuels facility in Kakinada, India for several years.
Demand for renewable fuels has been strongest among fast growing economies like India, where decision makers fear dependence upon imported fossil fuels. India produces only about 1% of global...
Biodiesel Christmas Caroling: FFA La La
Jim Lane “On the way” forever, talked up by all, deployed by some – technologies that handle high free fatty acid feedstocks like used cooking oil are coming into their hey-day, via players like REG, Novozymes, Pacific Biodiesel, Blue Sun, Piedmont, COMAC and more. Christmas come early for advanced biofuels? One of the most alluring targets in advanced biofuels although cruelly mis-named is in the world of free fatty acids. Most of the oils currently used for biodiesel are sourced from soybeans, palm or rapeseed, and precisely because they contain less than 0.5%...
Advantage Biodiesel
By Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA
Because of rising fertilizer prices, farmers are planting more soybeans than corn. Soybeans are a legume, meaning that they can fix their own nitrogen in the soil, meaning that they need less nitrogen fertilizer, the price of which is spiking due to rising natural gas prices. Corn, in contrast, needs more nitrogen than most other crops.
High gas prices are rising because of Putin’s war on Ukraine, which is also preventing Ukrainian farmers from planting this year’s wheat crop, while sanctions are likely to disrupt wheat supplies from Russia as well.
Corn and (to a lesser extent,...
FutureFuel’s Future
by Debra Fiakas CFA Last week the president of renewable chemicals producer FutureFuel Corporation (FF: NYSE) turned in his resignation. Lee Mikles is around sixty and seems a bit young for retirement. He had been with the company from day one and served as the chief executive officer through the end of 2012. He owns 2.3 million shares of FutureFuel stock or about 5% of the outstanding shares. Maybe Mikles is just looking for a better paycheck. The last time the company disclosed compensation, Mikles was down for $36,000 in compensation as a director. Along with...
North American Outlook on Biofuels Challenges and Opportunities
Challenges and Opportunities in Biofuels
By Steve Hartig, Former VP of Technology Development at ICM
The North American biofuels market can be split into three main segments all of which have major dynamics. What I would like to do is give a high-level overview of what I see as some of both the challenges and opportunities across these.
Ethanol which is a produced from corn and sorghum in about 200 plants mainly across the Midwest and blended at about 10% with gas. Majors such as POET, Green Plains, Flint Hills, Valero, ADM and Cargill do a bit more than half of the 16...
Amyris hits the comeback trail
Jim Lane Biofene production starts up in Paraiso, Brazil – sales expected to commence in Q1 2013 – Total, Temasek, Biolding inject fresh capital. What’s next for biofuels’ “Comeback Kid”? By now, most of the “smart set” that found itself excited about Amyris (AMRS), and about advanced synthetic biofuels during the IPO fever, have moved on. They read Dan Grushkin’s “The Rise And Fall Of The Company That Was Going To Have Us All Using Biofuels” in Fast Company, wrote off Amyris and possibly the entire sector, and presumably migrated their enthusiasm to low-cost natural gas, battery...
Fretting Over FutureFuel
by Debra Fiakas CFA Earlier this week FutureFuel Corporation (FF: NYSE) reported financial results for the second quarter ending June 2015. Sales of the company’s biodiesel and specialty chemical products increased 53.7% to $104.6 million compared to the prior-year quarter when reported revenue was $68.0 million. The company delivered a profit as usual, but traders appeared unimpressed. The stock gapped lower on the news and two days later set a new 52-week low price. Granted net income was lower year-over-year by 30.9%, coming in at $3.8 million or $0.09 per share. A closer look...
EPA increases US Renewable Fuel Standard Volumes, But Only Slightly
Jim Lane In Washington, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced final volume requirements under the Renewable Fuel Standard program today for the years 2014, 2015 and 2016, and final volume requirements for biomass-based diesel for 2014 to 2017. This rule finalizes higher volumes of renewable fuel than the levels EPA proposed in June, boosting renewable production and providing support for robust, achievable growth of the biofuels industry. “The biofuel industry is an incredible American success story, and the RFS program has been an important driver of that successcutting carbon pollution, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and sparking...
A Decade Of Unexpected Curves In The Bioeconomy
By Jim Lane
Over the years we’ve all seen a lot of curveballs in the advanced bioeconomy. You see companies like Valero, which lobby the United States Congress with unbridled intensity to get rid of the Renewable Fuel Standard, on the verge of becoming the single-biggest producer of RINs in the United States (with news that they might take capacity at Diamond Green Diesel up to 540 million gallons).
You see companies like Solazyme which love the Renewable Fuel Standard and drive up to nearly a billion-dollar post-IPO valuation based on delivering fuels at volume, then announcing that there are even...
