A nascent boom in the market for soybean oil is facing unexpected headwinds from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Wall Street Journal reports. The commodity is tied up in the meeting point between agriculture and fuel, leaving it subject to shifts in energy markets. Soybean oil futures tumbled after EPA last December proposed to mandate less use of biomass-based diesel through 2025 than expected. The price of soybean oil has roughly doubled over the past three years, largely because of demand to make fuel for trucks and trains. Visions of soybean-powered truck fleets prompted a kind of green-oil boom in the Midwest, with bean-crushing plants in place of derricks and drills. But companies have little economic motive to make diesel from soybean oil without government incentives, which are aimed at reducing carbon emissions, so the EPA news has put some projects on pause, the article notes.
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