What is a RIN, in plain terms?
A RIN is a Renewable Identification Number: an EPA credit created when renewable fuel is produced. EPA calls RINs “credits used for compliance” and the “currency” of the Renewable Fuel Standard. Producers generate them, market participants trade them, and obligated parties, which EPA lists as refiners and importers of gasoline or diesel, retire them to show compliance.
You do not need to be obligated to touch one. If you are a jobber buying biodiesel or renewable diesel, RINs may arrive with the fuel as part of the price, and they may leave your hands again as a separate sale. EPA’s own definition is on its RIN page.
How many RINs come with a gallon?
It depends on the fuel’s equivalence value: 1.5 for biodiesel and 1.7 for non-ester renewable diesel with a lower heating value of at least 123,500 Btu per gallon (40 CFR 80.1415(b)). Denatured ethanol is 1.0. The equivalence value sets how many gallon-RINs a producer can generate per gallon.
So 1,000 gallons of biodiesel carry 1,500 gallon-RINs, and 1,000 gallons of qualifying renewable diesel carry 1,700. Each RIN also carries a D code naming the fuel category: 3 cellulosic biofuel, 4 biomass-based diesel, 5 advanced biofuel, 6 renewable fuel, 7 cellulosic diesel (40 CFR 80.1425). EPA says companies keep RIN accounts by D code and by the year the RIN was generated, so both fields matter when you compare what a supplier is offering.
Who separates the RIN from the fuel?
The party that owns the fuel when it is blended. Under 40 CFR 80.1429(b)(2), any party that owns a volume of renewable fuel must separate its assigned RINs once the volume is blended with gasoline or fossil-based diesel to produce a transportation fuel, heating oil or jet fuel. An obligated party that owns the volume must separate them too.
EPA describes two forms. An assigned RIN travels with a batch of fuel from party to party, and the purchaser gets both together. A separated RIN is no longer tied to a batch, and a buyer purchases only the RIN.
Two rules matter at the jobber level. Blending triggers separation: if you own B100 and blend it into diesel, you are the party that separates, and the separated RINs are yours to sell or hold. Biodiesel also has a ceiling. The blending rule applies to biodiesel only when it is blended into diesel at 80 volume percent biodiesel or less. Obligated parties and exports are exceptions, and so is the neat-use route: a party that designates neat renewable fuel, or a blend with diesel, as transportation fuel, heating oil or jet fuel and uses it without further blending must separate the RINs (80.1429(b)(4)).
Small refiners, exporters and obligated parties have their own limits. If your situation is not a simple blend and sell, read 80.1429 or ask your compliance contact before relying on this summary.
Where does the RIN show up on a quote or invoice?
On the product transfer document, the paperwork that moves with ownership of the fuel. For renewable fuel, 40 CFR 80.1453 requires it to show the volume, the date, both parties’ EPA company registration numbers and, for RINs, the quantity, D code, status (assigned or separated) and generation year. If no assigned RINs move with the fuel, the document must state “No assigned RINs transferred.”
That sentence is the line to look for. Buyers sometimes talk about a price being “RIN in” or “RIN out”; the regulation’s own test is whether assigned RINs transferred with the fuel.
A per-gallon price on B99 or neat renewable diesel can mean either case, and the quote may not say which. A blend at B80 or below is different: whoever owned the biodiesel when it was blended had to separate the RINs (80.1429(b)(2)), so a B20 normally comes with “No assigned RINs transferred”, and any RIN value in that deal is a separated RIN sold alongside the fuel. Check the transfer document against the quote before you compare two suppliers. It is the same habit as asking what is inside a delivered price on the tax side: see how to compare bulk fuel quotes and the federal excise tax on a fuel invoice.
What does a RIN-attached price look like against a separated one?
Say you are comparing two quotes for 1,000 gallons of biodiesel. The prices and the RIN value are invented for illustration. They are not market data, and RIN values move.
| Quote A | Quote B | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per gallon | $4.00 | $3.55 |
| RINs | Assigned, 1,500 | “No assigned RINs transferred” |
| Assumed RIN value (illustrative) | $0.80 each | n/a |
| RIN value per gallon of fuel | $1.20 | $0 |
| Net per gallon if you separate and sell | $2.80 | $3.55 |
Quote A looks $0.45 dearer on its face. If you can blend, separate the RINs and sell them at the assumed value, it is $0.75 cheaper. Two things erode that. You collect the RIN value only if you are the party that can lawfully separate, and you then have to find a buyer and complete the trade. RINs left unsold, or found invalid, are value you paid for and did not collect.
If you do the blending, scale to the biodiesel content. Blend 1,600 gallons of B100 into 6,400 gallons of diesel and you have 8,000 gallons of B20 and 2,400 gallon-RINs to separate (1,600 × 1.5). At the same assumed $0.80, that is $1,920, or $0.24 spread over each gallon of B20.
How long is a RIN good for?
A RIN can satisfy an obligation for the year it was generated and the year after. EPA’s example: 2012 RINs can only be used for 2012 and 2013 compliance, and then they expire. EPA’s RIN page says obligated parties typically retire RINs after the compliance year ends, or by March 31. Separated RINs age, so don’t leave them in an account indefinitely.
What should you ask a supplier?
Get the answers to these in writing before you accept a biodiesel or renewable diesel price:
- Does this price include assigned RINs, and how many gallon-RINs per gallon?
- What D code and generation year are they?
- Who separates, and when: you, the supplier, or the next party?
- Will the transfer document carry the RIN fields, or the statement that no assigned RINs transferred?
- If I blend, can you document the biodiesel content so the separation rule is met?
- What happens if the RINs are later found invalid?
On the last one, settle in the contract who pays whom if RINs prove invalid, before the first load, and ask your compliance contact what EPA’s invalid-RIN rules still require of you. For the pricing basics under all of this, see the guide to wholesale fuel pricing for suppliers and the rack pricing entry. For the weekly inventory and demand numbers behind rack moves, see reading the EIA weekly petroleum report. If you also move dyed product, the dyed diesel order is another place where the paperwork has to match the fuel.
How Energy Connect handles it
Energy Connect does not generate, separate or trade RINs, and it is not a compliance adviser. Whether a price carries RINs, and who separates them, is set between you and your supplier under EPA’s rules, so take the six questions above to your supplier and your compliance contact, and use the answers when you compare quotes.