Canada: Canola bides its time

In January 2020, the United States National Biodiesel Board announced it was setting an “ambitious target” of doubling biodiesel/renewable diesel production to 22.7 billion litres by 2030. Turns out it wasn’t nearly ambitious enough. The organization thinks the new timeline could be as soon as 2023 due to a plethora of announced expansions and new projects that will add billions of litres of renewable diesel capacity in two years. “It’s definitely going to be well in advance of 2030,” said Donnell Rehagen, chief executive officer of the NBB. That is music to the ears of Canada’s canola growers and crushers because canola oil is expected to be a key feedstock used by the industry. The NBB estimates that half of the country’s existing biodiesel/renewable diesel is made from soybean oil with a small contribution from canola oil. The other half is made from used cooking oil, animal fats and distillers corn oil, with each commodity contributing about one-third of that pie. The industry ...