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Billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s oil refining company, CVR Energy, made a massive bet in 2016 that prices for U.S. government biofuels credits would fall – just before Icahn started advising President Trump on regulations driving that market.

The size and specifics of the gamble – involving $186 million worth of biofuels credits the company said it needed at the end of 2016 to satisfy regulatory requirements – have not been previously reported by the media.

The government awards the biofuels credits to firms that produce such blends – and requires firms that don’t, such as CVR, to buy the credits from their competitors.

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Icahn’s firm positioned itself to slash those regulatory costs by tens of millions of dollars if biofuels credit prices declined, according to a Reuters review of CVR filings.

Last year, Icahn’s refining firm postponed buying biofuels credits and instead sold millions of them – a bet that it could buy the credits it would need later at lower prices.

That strategy paid off in December, as prices for biofuels credits fell after Icahn – a vocal critic of biofuels credit mandates – was named an unpaid presidential advisor on regulatory issues.

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