Neste’s Growing Circular Economies
by Jim Lane
In California, waste feedstock from the city of Oakland is now being converted to Neste (NEF.F, NESTE.HE, NTOIF, NTOIY) MY Renewable Diesel and fuels the city’s fleet.
The city, Neste, fuel distributor Western States Oil and local collectors for used cooking oil joined forces to gather waste cooking oils from restaurants and other businesses in the Oakland metropolitan area and convert it to fuel the city’s fleet. By making waste more valuable and supporting jobs that collect and treat it, this concept helps the local economy in the city while the cleaner-burning Neste MY Renewable Diesel improves the lives of its...
3 Alternative Energy Stocks You Need to Know
In the face of a declining overall energy market today, three of our favorite alternative energy stocks posted strong gains on high volume. The Oil Services HOLDRs ETF (OIH) was down 2% and the PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy ETF (PBW) was down 1.7%. Indeed, the vast majority of the energy stocks that we track were in the red. But bucking the trend were two energy stocks that we have profiled in the recent past and a third company that we will begin covering today. First on the list is our favorite wind energy play, Welwind Energy International...
Fortunately, Unfortunately: The Spring Saga of American Ethanol
by Jim Lane
The ethanol signals from Washington DC are more inexplicably mixed than cocktails with names like Sex on the Beach. Let’s parse through the wigwagging over the future of American biofuels supply and demand — ethanol and otherwise.
Fortunately: Trump backs year-round E15 ethanol blends
In Washington, President Trump endorsed year-round E15 ethanol availability as an emerging compromise between oil refiners and US farm sector.
The Renewable Fuel Standard is a federal program that requires transportation fuel sold in the United States to contain a minimum volume of renewable fuels. The RFS originated in a bi-partisan Congress with the Energy Policy Act...
Fretting Over FutureFuel
by Debra Fiakas CFA Earlier this week FutureFuel Corporation (FF: NYSE) reported financial results for the second quarter ending June 2015. Sales of the company’s biodiesel and specialty chemical products increased 53.7% to $104.6 million compared to the prior-year quarter when reported revenue was $68.0 million. The company delivered a profit as usual, but traders appeared unimpressed. The stock gapped lower on the news and two days later set a new 52-week low price. Granted net income was lower year-over-year by 30.9%, coming in at $3.8 million or $0.09 per share. A closer look...
Biofuel Industry Reacts To EPA New Renewable Fuel Standard
Yay or Nay for EPA? RFS Volumes out for 2020, Biodiesel for 2021 – What’s the reaction from industry?
by Jim Lane
What’s the reaction from industry? Coal for Christmas?
Should Santa bring coal for EPA’s stocking this year? Do the biofuels and agriculture industries think the EPA just put coal in their stocking? Is it thumbs up or thumbs down from biofuel industry advocates on last week’s U.S. Environmental Protection Agency renewable fuel volumes? What about the exempted volumes?
The Ruling – Rotten or Respectable?
First, a bit on the EPA ruling that establishes the required renewable volumes under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program for...
Waste Vegetable Oil: A Slick Way to Biofuel Your Portfolio
In August, I argued that Biodiesel stocks could be in trouble from more efficient ways to turn the oils and fats they use as feedstock into fuel, and concluded the article by saying that the likely winners are suppliers of oils and fats, not the processors. James Kingsdale, of Energy Investment Strategies has been thinking along the same lines. Last week he wrote an excellent overview of the major biofuels industries, including some stock picks. One of those stock picks was the diamond in the rough I wish I had known about when I wrote Biodiesel's Nightmare: Renewable Diesel...
Renewable Energy Group Teams Up With ExxonMobil For Cellulosic Biodiesel
Jim Lane Two giants hook up to bring cellulosic biodiesel to scale. A new source of biodiesel feedstock, and a new source of renewable fuels. In Iowa, ExxonMobil (XOM) and Renewable Energy Group (REGI) have agreed to jointly study the production of biodiesel by fermenting renewable cellulosic sugars from sources such as agricultural waste. REG has developed a patented technology that uses microbes to convert sugars to biodiesel in a one-step fermentation process similar to ethanol manufacturing. The ExxonMobil and REG Life Sciences research will focus on using sugars from non-food sources. Terms were not disclosed. Readers will...
Another Biodiesel Plant Gets The Axe. Here’s Why.
by Jim Lane
In another small but sharp blow to the Trump Administration’s strategy for American manufacturing revival, news arrives from Texas of a second smaller biodiesel shuttering owing to “ challenging business conditions and continued federal policy uncertainty,” as Renewable Energy Group (REGI) phrased it in announcing the closure of its15 million gallons per year New Boston, Texas biorefinery. The company is currently working with plant employees on relocation opportunities within the production network.
The tax credit issue
The forces impacting the US biodiesel industry at present are complex, but REG in this case is pointing the blame at the biodiesel tax...
Solazyme’s Oilcane Boom
Jim Lane Though building capacity globally, Solazyme’s operations in Brazil are getting traction fast – and raised $235M last week. How much oil could be produced in Brazil via sugar-munching microalgae? Today, the Digest looks at Solazyme’s (SZYM) progress and the bigger picture. In California, two monster announcements came out of Solazyme headquarters last week. One related to project finance and one related to raising cash. In midweek, Solazyme Bunge (BG) Renewable Oils received approval for project financing in the form of a $120M (R$245.6M) loan from the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES). ...
Methes: The McDonald’s of Biofuel
by Debra Fiakas CFA Few would make the connection, so Methes Energies International (MEIL: Nasdaq) chief executive office explains his company’s unusual business model in McDonald’s terms. Methes, which is a contraction of ‘methyl ester,’ has developed a biodiesel system that accommodates various feedstocks that yield methyl esters. The system is a handsome, compact configuration of stainless steel tanks and piping that are all capable of automated operation. The company operates its own commercial-scale facilities in Ontario, Canada. Sales of biodiesel represent the majority of Methes revenue, which totaled $10.3 million in the twelve months ending...
What I Sold: Dynamotive Energy Systems (OTC:DYMTF)
This entry continues a series on companies I sold as part of a portfolio cleanup prompted by the mess on Wall Street. In the first entry I described what I plan to do with the cash, followed by the reasons why I sold Carmanah Technologies and Pacific Ethanol. UQM Technologies was one I didn't sell. I have not mentioned Dynamotive Energy Systems (DYMTF) before. I have mixed feelings about the company. They use fast pyrolysis to make cellulosic biofuels, which I believe will prove to be one of the more economic pathways to cellulosic biofuels. However, I believe that...
Advantage Biodiesel
By Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA
Because of rising fertilizer prices, farmers are planting more soybeans than corn. Soybeans are a legume, meaning that they can fix their own nitrogen in the soil, meaning that they need less nitrogen fertilizer, the price of which is spiking due to rising natural gas prices. Corn, in contrast, needs more nitrogen than most other crops.
High gas prices are rising because of Putin’s war on Ukraine, which is also preventing Ukrainian farmers from planting this year’s wheat crop, while sanctions are likely to disrupt wheat supplies from Russia as well.
Corn and (to a lesser extent,...
Renewable Energy Group Raises $72 Million in Biodiesel IPO
Jim Lane In Iowa, the Renewable Energy Group IPO priced last night, and the company’s shares began trading Thursday on NASDAQ under the REGI symbol. The company sold 7.2 million shares at $10 per share, well below its midpoint target of $14 per share announced last week, with total proceeds of up to $82.8 million if all over-allotments are covered by underwriters. Without over-allotment sales, the offering will raise $72 million. UBS Securities LLC and Piper Jaffray & Co. are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering. Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated and Canaccord...
A (nearly) Pure-play Biodiesel Stock
On January 29th, M~Wave and private vertically integrated Biodiesel distributor Blue Sun Biodiesel announced a merger between the two, with Blue Sun becoming a division of M~Wave, and the merged company being renamed Blue Sun Holdings. Managerial control will also pass to "certain directors and the officers of SunFuels." If this merger goes through as planned in the second quarter of 2007, US investors will have their first opportunity to invest in a stock focused on a biofuel which is much less controversial among environmentalists than corn-based ethanol. Estimates of the well-to-wheels Energy Return on Energy Invested...
Darling’s Renewable Diesel Diamond
In July 2013, Darling Ingredients (DAR: NYSE) and its joint venture partner Valero Energy (VLO: NYSE) commissioned the largest facility in North America to convert waste animal fats into renewable diesel. The facility was strategic located adjacent to Valero’s petroleum refining installation in Norco, Louisiana.
At the time the facility was capable of pumping out 12,000 barrels of renewable diesel per day that could be dropped directly into Valero’s distribution network and blended with fossil fuel. Even at that production level the facility showed promise to deliver strong dividends back to its owners. The partners named their venture Diamond Green Diesel and celebrated the unparalleled achievement.
The two partners in Diamond Green...
Interview With Dan Oh, CEO Of Renewable Energy Group
Jim Lane Leading a series this week, “The Strategics Speak", in which we’ll look at what a number of major strategic investors see in the landscape relating to industrial, energy and agricultural investment, Biofuels Digest visited with Dan Oh, CEO of Renewable Energy Group (REGI), which has long been the US’s leading independent biodiesel producer but in recent years has steadily diversified and expanded operations. In many ways, REG is the entire industrial biotech business in a nutshelll. They’re fermentation (through REG Life Sciences), and thermocatalytic (through REG Geismar and their extensive biodiesel business). They use both...
