Green Plains suffers fourth-quarter loss due to falling ethanol prices

Green Plains, a US-based commodity processing firm, said that it had a fourth-quarter loss, from a profit a year earlier, due to depressed selling prices for ethanol.

The Omaha-based company said the net loss was $3.6m (€2.73m), or 9 cents a share, from net income of $42m, or $1.07 a share, a year earlier. Revenue fell 11% to $740m, compared with $830m for the same period last year.

The ethanol production unit — the company is the fourth-largest producer in the US— had an operating loss of $2.5m, from a profit of $83m year earlier.

"Even with strong global and domestic ethanol blending growth, US production continues to outpace demand for the time being," Green Plains Chief Executive Todd Becker said in a statement.

He added: "We are carefully managing our supply chain and production levels in the first quarter until the forward curve shows some measurable improvement as we approach stronger seasonal demand."

Green Plains said it had a fourth-quarter profit on a pre-tax basis but that a very high tax rate caused the net loss.