The Environmental Protection Agency this week announced its decisions on six individual small refinery exemption petitions from four refineries seeking an exemption from their Renewable Fuel Standard obligations for the 2023 and 2024 compliance years, granting full (100 percent) exemptions to one petition, partial (50 percent) exemptions to two petitions, and determining three petitions to be ineligible.
According to the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), the approved exemptions will result in 160 million RINs being returned to the market, undermining the 2026 renewable volume obligations by the same amount.
“We fail to see any justification at all for any small refinery exemptions—especially at a time of record refining margins and sky-high profits,” said RFA President and CEO Geoff Cooper. “And we continue to believe the DOE matrix that EPA relies upon is fundamentally flawed and out of touch with current market conditions. Refiners, both large and small, pass their RIN costs along to buyers of refined fuels at the terminal rack and there is no evidence of any refinery experiencing disproportionate economic hardship due to the RFS. That said, we commend EPA for throwing out several petitions that were clearly ineligible.”
Cooper notes that small refiners are “raking in record profits, as operating margins have vaulted to record heights since the beginning of the war in Iran.”
One of the refineries that received a partial exemption is owned by HF Sinclair, which recently reported its refining segment income before interest and income taxes was $877 million for the second quarter of 2026, compared to $166 million for the second quarter of 2025. Adjusted refinery gross margin was $25.95 per produced barrel sold, a 57% increase compared to $16.50 for the second quarter of 2025.
The three petitions that were determined to be ineligible were also HF Sinclair refineries. These include HF Sinclair’s Artesia, New Mexico, refinery (for both 2023 and 2024, due to exceeding the 75,000 bpd threshold) and its Parco (Sinclair, Wyoming) refinery for 2024.