The biodiesel industry produced 147 million gallons in May, up 2 percent from April but down 5 percent from May 2019. However, soybean oil utilization jumped to 778 million pounds, up 16 percent from April and beating the previous monthly volume of 768 million pounds set in December 2018. Soybean oil accounted for 70 percent of May feedstock use.

Soybean oil has benefited from lack of supply of other biodiesel feedstocks. Yellow grease has been impacted by the slowdown in the food service industry and by sharply lower cattle slaughter volumes in April and May. Lower ethanol production has cut the supply of distillers corn oil. Of the major biodiesel feedstocks, only canola oil joined soybean oil in seeing higher YOY use—because canola oil use in 2019 was rather low.

Utilization of major biodiesel feedstocks


Source: EIA
Posted by: Information Services
Our Information Services team assists our clients with understanding commodity and ingredient market dynamics. Using our extensive database of intelligence, we also produce regular commodity and commercial market publications covering supply and demand fundamentals, news alerts on events that shape the markets, and resource guides to give you a complete picture of the industries we monitor.