Biodiesel in the United States： The growth of renewable diesel production in the United States has a great impact on global raw material trade.

In the past few years, the production pattern of renewable diesel in the United States has undergone tremendous changes, similar to the growth of ethanol and biodiesel in the past two decades. Driven by federal and state emission reduction policies, the substantial increase of renewable diesel production and capacity in the United States is causing a major market-changing change in domestic and foreign raw material trade. Like biodiesel, renewable diesel is produced from the same renewable raw materials, such as vegetable oil, animal fat or waste cooking oil (UCO). The difference is that renewable diesel oil is produced by hydrogen treatment, which makes its chemical properties the same as petroleum diesel oil, so it can be mixed at a higher level and transported by existing pipelines. Therefore, the United States is rapidly expanding the import of animal fat and vegetable oil, which are not only used as raw materials for renewable diesel production, but also supplement other raw materials that have been transferred to renewable diesel production, such as soybean oil. At home, the US soybean crushing capacity has expanded to produce more soybean oil, because of the high price of soybean oil and strong crushing profit margin. Despite the increase in domestic demand, the export volume of American soybeans declined due to the increase in Brazil’s supply and the slowdown in global import demand. In addition, the premium of soybean oil in the United States soared far higher than the global vegetable oil price, which led to a sharp drop in US exports, and the United States became a net importer of soybean oil for the first time in 2023. The increase in soybean crushing has a negative impact on soybean meal exports, because the abundant supply of soybean meal, coupled with the drought in Argentina, the world’s largest soybean meal exporter, has promoted exports and is expected to continue to grow.Although many uncertainties may affect the market of biofuels, animal fats and oilseeds in the United States, the output of renewable diesel oil is expected to continue to grow and change the raw material market. However, the output growth rate will be highly dependent on federal and state policies, raw material supply and the continuous growth of soybean meal exports in the United States.