VLO - Refiners' Last-Ditch Effort To Resurrect Small Refinery Exemptions
D6 Renewable Identification Number [RIN] prices tumbled by up to 15% earlier this month on the news that refiners have asked the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] to retroactively grant small refinery exemptions for the last decade (see figure). Still reeling from a federal appellate court's decision earlier this year that most of the exemptions that were awarded under the Obama and, in expanded form, Trump administrations had been unlawful, and left with limited options following the Trump administration's choice not to appeal the decision, the move is a last-ditch effort by the refining sector to