News

Green Plains CEO says ethanol plants are not ‘shutting down’

The CEO of Green Plains Renewable Energy says the company is not shutting down ethanol plants in Iowa and Minnesota, as recent news reports have indicated.

Todd Becker tells Brownfield those reports are “absolutely untrue”.

“We have idled some plants back to just a warm idle, getting ready to restart them at any moment. But other than that, this is really just normal course for Green Plains in the market,” Becker says.

“They’re certainly not shut down. We’re not stopping production. We’re still taking corn. We still plan on running these plants.”

The Green Plains plants mentioned in news reports are at Superior and Lakota, Iowa and Fairmont, Minnesota.

Becker says the ethanol industry is currently producing more ethanol than what is needed, which has reduced profit margins. He says the loss of ethanol exports to China is one factor.

“What we expected by now is the Chinese would engage in a full-scale program to import ethanol—and obviously, with some of the things happening around the tariff situation, that’s going to take a bit longer than we expect,” Becker says. “Although we do believe they do need the product in the long-term.”

The RFS waivers granted to oil refineries have also hurt demand, he says.

“Without a doubt, there was demand destruction from the refinery waivers.”

Becker says production slowdowns in the ethanol industry are not unusual when supply starts to outpace demand.

“This isn’t anything different than anything we’ve done over the last several years—although some people are trying to make a story out of it.”

Green Plains owns 17 ethanol plants with a production capacity of about 1.5 billion gallons. It ranks among the top five ethanol producers in the country.

AUDIO: Todd Becker