Exclusive: Five minutes with Poet’s Jeff Broin

US-based Poet is one of the world’s largest ethanol producers. The 28-year-old company has a production capacity in excess of 1.7 billion gallons of ethanol and 9 billion pounds of high-protein animal feed annually. Earlier this year, Liz Gyekye caught up with CEO Jeff Broin to find out about the company’s outlook and current state of the market.

LG: How would you describe the mood of the bioethanol industry at this time?

Jeff Broin:  We are trying to build a larger market in the US at the moment. The E10 (a mixture of 10% ethanol and 85% petrol) market is full and we are looking to build the E15 market.  

We are expanding the ‘Prime the Pump’ programme. Prime the Pump was set up to put E15 in flex pumps (a pump that can store both petrol or a petrol-ethanol blends) throughout the nation - mostly through the highest volume markets in the country.

Around $61 million (€54m) worth of funds have helped to fund the programme.  The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) credited us with another $100m to help incentivise retailers put in flex pumps.

LG: We are already half way throughout the 2016. What is the bioethanol industry’s main aim this for the end of the year?

Jeff Broin: E15 is our main aim today but you can get E30 and E85 in those pumps. We have to incentivise retailers to do this.  

When we started rolling out E10 we went to the smallest volume markets. With E15 we are doing the reverse and going to the biggest volume markets first and putting the pumps in those markets first.

We hope to install 7,000 pumps and 500 gas stations by the end of this year. We are talking to the big retailers like Sheetz, Pump ‘n’ Go and Thorntons.

Our goal is to get E15 out there. We have plenty of ethanol out there and we have plenty of commodities as well. Corn prices are back to the cost of production and, in some cases, below the cost of production.

LG: I understand that Poet operates a network of 28 production facilities, which includes “Project Liberty,” a commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa built through a joint venture with the Netherlands-based DSM. What are the future plans does Poet have?

Jeff Broin: We use about 650 million bushels of corn per year. We are working to get that operating full-time. We are shipping ethanol but we are still making modifications. At some point in the future we see replication of that cellulosic ethanol process.

The next step will be to take surplus energy from the cellulosic plant to drive the corn plant based next to it in order to help reduce GHG emissions.

Project Liberty will have enough energy to power itself and two corn stover plants next to it. The goal is to be near capacity by the end of the year.

Other countries are interested in the technologies.  We like to see the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stand behind their commitments from the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) so that the cellulosic plants get built here. They need to stand behind their laws and enforce them. 

This article was written by Liz Gyekye, editor of Biofuels International.