Renewable Energy Group Inc 's

We face competition from producers and suppliers of petroleum-based diesel fuel, from other biomass-based diesel producers, marketers, traders and distributors. The size of the biomass-based diesel industry is small compared to the size of the petroleum-based diesel fuel industry and large petroleum companies have greater resources than we do. Our principal competitive differentiators are product quality, both biomass-based diesel and RIN quality, supply reliability and price. We also face competition in the biomass-based diesel RIN compliance market from producers of renewable hydrocarbon diesel and in the advanced biofuel RIN compliance market from producers of other advanced biofuels. In the United States and Canadian biomass-based diesel markets, we compete with large, multi-product companies that have greater resources than we do. Archer Daniels Midland Company, Cargill Incorporated, Louis Dreyfus Commodities Group and Ag Processing Inc. are major international agribusiness corporations and biodiesel producers with the financial sourcing and marketing resources to be formidable competitors in the biodiesel industry. These agribusiness competitors tend to make biodiesel from higher cost virgin vegetable oils such as soybean or canola oil, which they produce as part of their integrated agribusinesses. We are also in competition with producers of renewable hydrocarbon diesel, such as Neste Oil, which has approximately 882 million gallons of renewable hydrocarbon diesel production capacity in Asia and Europe and Diamond Green Diesel, LLC, the joint venture between Valero Energy Corp. and Darling International. Renewable hydrocarbon diesel can also satisfy the RFS2 biomass-based diesel requirement if the renewable hydrocarbon diesel meets the greenhouse gas reduction requirements and may satisfy Canadian renewable fuel requirements. Neste Oil has greater financial resources than we do.
In the RFS2 advanced biofuel market, we also compete with other producers and importers of advanced biofuels, such as Brazilian sugarcane ethanol producers and producers of biogas used in transportation. We face increasing competition from imported biomass-based diesel and expect this to continue. In January 2015, the EPA announced the approval of a plan submitted by CARBIO, a consortium of Argentinean renewable fuel producers, which allows for Argentinian biodiesel made from soybean oil to generate RINs. Imported biomass-based diesel that does not qualify under RFS2, also competes in jurisdictions where there are biomass-based diesel blending requirements.
We also face competition from independent biodiesel producers. Most of these competitors own only one biodiesel plant and thus, do not enjoy the benefits of scale that we do. Many of these competitors own biodiesel plants that can process only higher cost virgin vegetable oils. Furthermore, in our marketing and distribution, we face competition from biomass-based diesel traders such as US Oil, NGL, Noble, Shell, Tenaska, Vitol and others. These trading companies may have greater financial resources than we do and are able to take significant biomass-based diesel positions in the marketplace. These competitors are often customers and/or suppliers of ours as well.