Thursday, March 21, 2013

Talk About Timely....

.... one of the nice things about RNB Energy: it combines great topics with perfect timing.

This morning RNB Energy posted an article on RINs --- and now, the Oil and Gas Journal reports that both the API and US Senators are asking the EPA to address rising RIN prices.
The American Petroleum Institute and two Republican US senators separately asked the Environmental Protection Agency to address renewable identification number (RIN) costs, which have jumped by 1,400% since the beginning of 2012.
API’s request came as it released a NERA Economic Consulting Study that concluded that the federal Renewable Fuel Standard, under which refiners are required to buy RINs to help them meet cellulosic ethanol requirements, is irretrievably broken and poised to seriously harm consumers, the US economy, and the nation’s fuel supply system.
Perhaps that's what the president had in mind. Killing coal, killing Keystone XL, and now killing the nation's fuel supply system seems to be the perfect trifecta. It is amazing what one president can do in one term, when his party controls the Senate. He will leave quite a legacy.

If Americans are content/satisfied with the price of gasoline now, they will enjoy what RINs will bring:
.... a 30% rise in the cost of gasoline (which could result in rationing and other transportation disruptions)...
Not that it will amount to anything, but the House is also looking into this debacle. The article is not worth reading but if the link is broken, this was the lede:
The US House Energy and Commerce Committee launched a bipartisan review of the federal Renewable Fuel Standard with a white paper addressing the so-called “blend wall,” the point at which adding the required ethanol volumes to gasoline supplies would result in a blend above the currently allowable 10% ethanol limit.