Reinvesting In Growth, Efficiency and Whole New Markets
April 12, 2023
BY Tom Bryan
Last year taught us that inflation environments, despite causing higher input costs, can produce good returns. For much of 2022—the exception being Q4—strong values for everything coming out of our plants (ethanol, distillers grains, corn oil) made up for the inflated expense of everything coming in (corn, natural gas, chemicals). This resulted in a months-long stretch of good profitability, for many, that has been hard to replicate in 2023. Still, the industry remains steady, even busy, this spring, and as we learn in “After A Good Year,” on page 18, some production costs are dropping.
Corn prices were high last year and that hasn’t changed in 2023. But natural gas prices have fallen considerably. Experts tell us that, last year, plants that were able to lock in their gas prices or reduce their usage tended to do better than average. Now, with natural gas prices and other input costs moderating with easing inflation, it’s just a matter of how well ethanol and coproduct prices hold up over the remainder of the year. That, of course, depends more than we’d like on the price of gasoline—and, to some extent, the availability of E15 this summer.
As we report in “Finding New Markets,” on page 24, one U.S. ethanol producer is tired of being hamstrung by the volatility of commodity and fossil fuel markets. Green Plains, the fourth largest ethanol producer in North America, is moving assertively toward a biorefining model that “does not center ethanol production.” The company, which owns and operates 11 U.S. biorefineries, is in the early stages of a transition away from being a producer of fuel ethanol, toward making the highest value products it can—like protein, corn oil and clean sugar—while decarbonizing its operations and going all-in on sustainable aviation fuel. “It’s going to take a while, but I am one hundred percent certain we will look very different two years from now than we look today,” Green Plains CEO Todd Becker tells us, emphasizing SAF and clean sugar as being key to the company’s move away from conventional participation in the ethanol market.
We look at another diversification strategy in “Two Fuels, One Place,” on page 32, a story about the hard-to-define benefits of pairing ethanol and renewable natural gas (RNG) production. While biogas/RNG production has the financial benefit of D3/D5 RIN generation, and sometimes onsite power, there’s not a long list of obvious reasons to make both fuels at or near the same complex. But a growing number of producers are. To explain the financial and operational synergies of producing the two biofuels together, or in parallel, we revisit three plants currently making RNG—Calgren, Aemetis and Verbio—and a fourth, Lincolnway Energy, beginning to explore it.
Finally, be sure to read “Busy with Upgrades,” on page 38, a look at expansions and facility enhancements at four U.S. ethanol plants that serve as good examples of the sort of bold reinvestments producers are making in efficiency, speed, output and storage.
Tom Bryan
President & Editor
Ethanol Producer Magazine
BBI International
tbryan@bbiinternational.com
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