D4

The Renewable Identification Number (RIN) has long served as the tool used to force renewable fuels like ethanol and soybean oil into the U.S. gasoline and diesel supply. A creation of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), RINs act as a subsidy that enables the production of renewable fuels that would not otherwise be economically justified. RIN prices are set by the usual workings of supply and demand, but chatter has bubbled up recently in the renewable fuels ecosystem that prices for a particular variety of RIN could be headed for a crash. In today’s RBN blog, we explain what’s behind the talk about RIN prices.

Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) are credits used to certify compliance with the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which requires certain minimum volumes of biofuels to be blended into fuels sold in the U.S. There are many types of fuels covered by the RFS and so RIN credits come in different categories. One category, the D6 RIN, applies to the blending of corn-based ethanol into refined gasoline to make the gasoline-ethanol blends we pump into our cars, SUVs and pickups. In 2013, the D6 RIN price skyrocketed 100-fold in one of the most extreme cases of panic buying in any major commodity market in history. In today’s RBN blog, we examine that event and address three key questions: How did it happen, what was the solution, and why does it matter today?