No Bull Insights | Biofuels Blast

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For as long as I can remember covering biofuels, there’s rarely been a dull moment.

Rewind a few years and it was the renewable diesel boom—an explosion in capacity that drove a more than 20% expansion in U.S. crush, as feedstock demand surged and waste oil imports followed.

Then came the expiration of 40A—the long-standing $1/gallon blender’s credit that underpinned biodiesel demand and blending for the better part of a decade.

In its place: 45Z—a total policy reset that reshaped incentives, penalized crop-based biofuels, and created a major headwind for used cooking oil imports.

Then came the 45Z amendments—part of Trump’s touted “big, beautiful” bill and effective January 1. Land use change penalties were removed. Non-USMCA feedstocks were restricted. And crop-based biofuels suddenly found themselves back on a level playing field with waste oils and greases.

And of course—trade.

Trump-era tariffs have also reshaped feedstock flows into the U.S., most notably a 50% tariff on Brazil that drove tallow shipments to zero shortly after implementation.

Now layer on the 2026–27 RVO—mandating record biomass-based diesel use over the next two years and fundamentally altering the demand trajectory for soybean oil.

At the same time, an eight-week stretch of war has pushed energy markets to their highest levels since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Step back, and it all comes down to three forces:

Biofuel policy
Trade policy
Geopolitics

Those three forces have collided in recent months — driving one of the largest sustained moves in feedstock markets in history and reshaping the outlook for pricing and demand for years to come.

And soybean oil is where all three collide.

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