California pares LCFS goals to tougher targets: Update

Updates trade discussion, adds links to other coverage.

California will pursue transportation fuel carbon reduction targets in 2025 nearly twice as tough as originally proposed under final Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) rulemaking language released late Monday.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) will consider a one-time tightening of annual targets for gasoline and diesel by 9pc in 2025, compared with the usual 1.25pc annual reduction and a 5pc stepdown first proposed in December 2023. Staff maintained a 30pc reduction target for 2030, compared to the current 20pc target.

Final rulemaking language introduced a new 20pc/yr cap on a company's credit generation from soybean- and canola-oil-based biodiesel or renewable diesel to begin in 2028. The updated rule also dropped proposals to require carbon reductions from jet fuel in addition to gasoline and diesel, a controversial proposal aligned with governor Gavin Newsom's (D) ambitions for lower-carbon air travel but which participants warned would not achieve its targets.

The new proposal immediately jolted a lethargic credit market that earlier this year slumped to the lowest spot price in nearly a decade under the weight of growing credit supplies. Current quarter trade raced higher by $12.50 — 26pc — in rare after-hours activity less than two hours after CARB staff published the latest documents. Trade continued up to $65/t in the first half of Tuesday's session before retreating in later hours back below $60/t.

Public comment on the proposals will continue to 27 August ahead of a planned 8 November public hearing and potential board vote. The program changes could be in place by the end of the first quarter of 2025, according to staff.

LCFS programs require yearly reductions to transportation fuel carbon intensity. Higher-carbon fuels that exceed these annual limits incur deficits that suppliers must offset with credits generated from the distribution to the market of approved, lower-carbon alternatives.

Surging use of renewable diesel and outsized credit generation from renewable natural gas have overwhelmed deficit generation to create a glut of credits available for future compliance. LCFS credits do not expire, and 26.1mn metric tonnes of credits — higher by 16pc than all the new deficits generated in 2023 — were available for future compliance by the end of March.

Credits fell in May to trade at $40/t, the lowest level for current quarter credits since June 2015.

California late last year formally proposed tougher annual targets, off-ramps for certain fuels and other changes to North America's largest and oldest LCFS program. Staff had initially targeted March to put ideas including a one-time, 5pc reduction to targets in 2025 and automatic mechanisms to match targets to credit and deficit generation before the board for formal approval, but they delayed that meeting after receiving hundreds of distinct comments on the original proposal.

Staff shifted the 2025 target to at least 7pc after an April workshop discussion and another record-breaking quarter of increases in credits available for future compliance. The 9pc recommendation followed the continued growth of credit supplies in recent quarters. Previous modeling estimated that such a target could draw down the credit bank by 8.2mn t in its first year. Uncertainty over how fuel suppliers and consumers would respond to that target led staff to leave in place the proposed 30pc target by 2030.

An outright cap on credits generated from soybean- or canola-oil derived biomass-based diesels augments initially proposed "guard rails" on crop-based credit generation through verification. The change would send a stronger market signal preferring waste-based feedstocks for diesel fuels that California expects to replace with zero-emission alternatives, staff said.

And staff dropped a proposed obligation on jet fuel used in intrastate flights, estimated to make up 10pc of California's jet fuel consumption. Participants had warned the measure would stoke more credit purchases than renewable jet fuel buying, due to the structure of the aviation fuel market.

By Elliott Blackburn