The EPA announced yesterday that it had granted five additional small refinery exemptions (SREs) for 2017, reducing the number of pending petitions in the queue for that year as of 1 March from seven to two. This brings the total number of exemptions to 9.4 percent of the 19.28 billion gallons in overall biofuel required volume obligations under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). After a company submits a petition to the EPA, the exemption is granted if the agency determines that complying with the RFS would create "disproportionate economic hardship." Small refineries are defined as producing no more than 75,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude in 2006 and an average aggregate daily throughput of the same limit in the most recent full calen...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.