Greenleaf secures feedstock, offtake agreement with Tenaska

Connecticut-based Greenleaf Biofuels LLC and Omaha, Neb.-based Tenaska BioFuels LLC have signed an exclusive, multiyear agreement for Tenaska to supply feedstock to and sell biodiesel from Greenleaf Biofuels’ 10 MMgy production facility in New Haven, Conn., currently under construction. The multifeedstock plant is expected to come online in late second quarter 2012.

According to Mark McCall, chief operating officer of Greenleaf Biofuels, the feedstock supply and offtake agreement executed with Tenaska BioFuels represents the company’s fortitude to supplying a domestically produced, cleaner burning alternative biofuel in the Northeast, irrespective of uncertainty surrounding future federal policy heading into 2012.

“Regardless of what happens, between RFS2 and the country’s increasing interest in promoting domestically produced fuel, there is a very bright future for biodiesel in this country,” McCall told Biodiesel Magazine. “I think RFS2 and the RIN program will be of strong support as will the tax credit, and we’re hopeful that that will be extended not only for one year but also on a multi-year basis as well.”

Greenleaf Biofuels’ future production facility will feature access to water, rail and road transportation for inbound and outbound transport. Additionally, the facility will feature a Greenline Industries system that was purchased at auction. The company is working with JatroDiesel and Innovative Design Engineering Associates to redesign and upgrade the process to include methanol recovery, distillation systems and cold filtering as part of the final polishing process. McCall said construction is progressing on schedule and on time with the majority of the foundation already nearing completion in preparation for walls to be erected shortly.

“Fortunately, the weather has been very nice here in the Northeast and it’s allowed the construction crews to work very efficiently,” he said.

Once operational, the majority of Greenleaf Biofuels’ future biodiesel product coming out of its New Haven production facility will end up in the Northeastern heating oil market to be blended into Bioheat, according to McCall. The northeast region, he added, commands about 70 percent of the U.S. heating oil market share.

“Our model and our strategy has always been to assist the regional heating oil distributors in blending biodiesel into heating oil,” McCall said. “There are a number of mandates in the Northeast and more coming so we think within a regional basis, the Bioheat market is a very important market for us.”