April 18

4/18 - Ukraine accounts for 80% of the world's sun-oil trade, which works out to 12% of all globally traded veg-oils. That 12% is lost for now. Palm oil is also in short supply due to Covid-driven production issues and Indonesian export restrictions. Now, new biofuel initiatives mean that sky-high crude oil markets can (and will) drag soy-oil prices higher. These converging forces pushed soy-oil futures to all-time record highs of $.8218 per pound on 3/11, and prices remained elevated at $.7891 on Friday (4/15). Speaking at Market Vision’s Spring Conference on 4/1, Brian Williams of Macquarie Group emphasized that renewable diesel is chemically indistinguishable from petroleum diesel and is not subject to the blending limitations (E10 & E15) of ethanol-based fuels. As a result, biofuel usage will grow to 41.4% of all U.S. soy-oil output in the 2021/22 crop year, up from 35.3% a year ago.