Specialist
SVP at Ryze Renewables Holdings LLC
Agenda
- Feedstock pricing and procurement dynamics
- Pre-treatment equipment purchasing behaviour and accessibility
- Logistics of feedstock transport and import
- Feedstock availability and demand growth with biofuels market expansion
Questions
1.
What are the key feedstocks for renewable fuels?
2.
How much have feedstock prices changed? Have those changes been unilateral across feedstocks? What primary factors drive prices in the feedstock market?
3.
How might the renewable fuels industry approach procuring and buying these feedstocks? How much of this is purchased on spot markets and how much is on longer-term contracts?
4.
Do you see feedstock procurement and purchasing changing in the next 1-2 years? What timeline do you see there as the renewable diesel market matures and there are more, larger facilities online?
5.
Is there enough transparency in the feedstock market? How comparable are feedstock prices when you look at some of the factors you mentioned in terms of the impurity level and the amount of pre-treatment required? What might be the level of transparency in the market vs what the market would like to see?
6.
You touched on the correlation between pricing and feedstock quality. What might discounts look like for certain impurity levels?
7.
How is the measurement of impurities quantified? Is a metric used?
8.
Is there significant competition for distressed or dirtier feedstocks? What’s the overall level of industry tolerance for cheaper feedstocks, and is that changing?
9.
Could you outline the key pre-treatment equipment manufacturers? Is there enough availability in that market? Is it tight or easy to get this equipment?
10.
What scale of yield loss is there for traditional pre-treaters? Is it 1-2% or more?
11.
Is the pre-treater flexible for all different kinds of feedstocks? Do you have to modify it to accept different feedstocks at all?
12.
What trends are you seeing in the market in terms of how people are approaching this equipment? Is it becoming a necessity?
13.
Who are the feedstock aggregators? Do you see aggregation becoming easier?
14.
You highlighted the Diamond Green-Valero JV. Might these partnerships between feedstock producers, aggregators and refiners be more common in the future? What advantage does that give and how do we think about that strategically?
15.
If the demand for renewable diesel exceeds the feedstock supply, it’s challenging to source feedstocks. Where are the best places to be in the market in terms of getting access to those feedstocks? Which renewable diesel producers do you think are best-positioned? Is it all about scale or are there other things to consider?
16.
You mentioned changes in terms of the RVO [Renewable Volume Obligation] moving from those congressional standards post-2023. What other possible outcomes do you see for the regulation side a couple of years down the line? Do you think there’s cause to be optimistic that the federal-level programmes may move to something more stable, such as an ever-declining carbon curve, or something more predictable?
17.
We mentioned factors that will impact being able to source the feedstock. How much of the feedstock costs for renewable diesel producers are transportation-related? How much can be done to improve those logistics, and how big of a chunk of the overall cost are logistics on that side?
18.
Do you see more people in the industry investing in infrastructure on the logistics side, either on feedstocks delivery to the facilities or product delivery to the market? Are there any logistical bottlenecks that people are trying to address?
19.
You mentioned the US could import some of the animal fat. Do you see the import of feedstocks being significant growth in overall volumes across the board for different feedstocks? What do you think will be the main feedstocks that are imported in a couple of years?
20.
One thing we haven’t touched on yet is the impact of some of that transportation on the CI [carbon intensity] score of some of these feedstocks. How important is that? Does that make a big difference in terms of if you’re moving something through the Panama Canal? Does that get less credit? Could you get more on the CI score of the feedstock by moving your facilities closer and reducing that transportation?
21.
What do you see being the highest-growth feedstock areas? Are there any underappreciated feedstocks? Do you think there will be some alternative pathways or feedstocks coming out of the market? What are some of the trends to look out for in the mid-to-long-term?
22.
What economies of scale do you get from being one of the larger renewable diesel producers of around a couple of thousand barrels per day? What are the main bottlenecks keeping people from realising those? Is it the feedstock availability or the capital costs?
23.
There are two parts of the puzzle to being strategically located – the feedstocks and the access to end markets. Is one more important than the other or are they equally important?
24.
Is there anything you think we’ve missed? Do you have any final thoughts around renewable diesel?
