Texas Gulf Coast's Largest Biodiesel Plant Back in Production

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--After announcing the acquisition of Green Earth Fuels LLC (Galena Park, Texas) in July 2016, BIOX Corporation (TSX:BX) (Hamilton, Ontario), with 50/50 joint venture partner World Energy Alternatives LLC (Boston, Massachusetts), has completed commissioning activities to put a 90 million-gallon-per-year biodiesel plant back into production in Galena Park.

In late 2007, Green Earth Fuels officially opened the $90 million plant with much fanfare. For related information, see November 19, 2007, article - Green Earth Fuels Officially Begins Production in Galena Park. But that run lasted about a year, and Green Earth became financially strapped and has been seeking to sell the plant since 2009.

BIOX has spent the past six months going through the facility, and production is not running at nameplate capacity. The plant was originally built by Gemma Power Systems LLC (Glastonbury, Connecticut).

The renewable biofuel capacity will now count toward the EPA's renewable volume obligation for biomass-based diesel for 2017 that was announced in December last year. The EPA's volume standards call for renewable biofuel "advanced" or cellulosic production technologies to grow by 1.2 billion gallons from 2016 to 2017, which represents a 6% increase in volume.

Earlier this month, the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) sent a petition to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requesting that it waive its 2016 cellulosic biofuels volume target "due to an inadequate domestic supply of such fuel."

The petition states that members of the AFPM, the trade organization that represents petroleum refiners, are unable to acquire the requisite amount of cellulosic biofuel renewable identification numbers (RINs) to comply with the EPA's 2017 biofuel mandate.

On January 17, the EPA sent a letter to the AFPM denying its petition for a partial supplemental waiver of the 2016 cellulosic biofuel standard. With the Trump administration taking over the White House on Friday, it will be interesting to watch Big Oil and biofuel producers stepping into the ring and starting new rounds of taking jabs at each other over U.S. energy policy.

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