Icahn-Backed Refiner Saves $189 Million on EPA's Biofuel Tweaks

CVR Energy Inc., backed by billionaire investor Carl Icahn, saved $189 million under the U.S. biofuels mandate last year. That’s largely thanks to a campaign he helped ignite to lower costs for compliance. CVR Energy, an independent oil refiner majority owned by Icahn Enterprises LP, spent $60 million on biofuel credits necessary to fulfill the mandate in 2018 -- a 76 percent drop from the company’s $249 million tab in 2017, a Feb. 21 regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows. Other oil refiners also have highlighted a decline in prices for the credits in quarterly filings and conference calls.Icahn was for a time the public face of a push to overhaul the Renewable Fuel Standard. The 2007 energy law compels refiners to blend escalating amounts of biofuel with petroleum or instead buy credits, known as Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs). The price of those credits surged to record levels in 2016, prompting Icahn to send a letter to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in August of that year decrying the market as “rigged” and “the mother of all short squeezes.”