Renewable diesel industry runs into headwinds

There isn’t quite as much furor surrounding the renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel sectors of late, according to an expert.

“Growth has certainly slowed from the heyday of 2018, 2019 and 2020 when it seemed like there was a project a week,” Jim Lane, publisher of Biofuels Digest, said in a recent webinar.

There are 23.7 billion gallons of planned capacity that have been announced around the globe.

While that is an impressive number, the rate of expansion is slowing. It is up only three per cent from 2024 levels.

However, there is still plenty of interest in the sector with companies like Neste Oyj, World Energy, SPG Bioenergy and Diamond Green Diesel committing to projects boasting billions of gallons of production.

“It’s not quite petroleum scale but certainly getting to a very interesting level of capacity,” Lane said in a webinar promoting the Advanced Bioeconomy Leadership Conference 2025.

Major players like Shell, BP and Marathon Oil Company are making investments despite some of the headwinds facing the industry.