Verbio’s 2011 sales predicted to be €650-€750 million

Biofuels producer Verbio says its group sales have so far risen by more than 45% over the past year to €539 million, which it has attributed to the rising prices of biofuels along with trading activities.

In the first three quarters of this year, Verbio produced more than 410,000 tonnes of biofuels, and although this was less than the 427,000 tonnes of biofuels produced in the same period in 2010, the company has made more money.

Earnings before EBITDA were €23.5 million for the first nine months of this year, an increase on the 16.5 million made in the same period in 2010. This rise also was partly to do with the seven wind turbines the company sold off.

However, consolidated operating profit was down by €3.9 million in the first three quarters of 2011, when compared to 2010, which the company has attributed to the depreciation of the biogas plants that opened in last year, as well as the ‘write-ups in the bioethanol segment at the end of 2010’.

The company’s production is currently running at over 90% capacity and Verbio says that the rise in E10, which is expected to increase to 30-50% of transport fuel consumption in Germany, should positively influence its future profits.

Also, Verbio has received interest from ‘additional municipal utilities’ that are keen to use the company’s new verbiogas, which is a new fuel made from residue natural gas filling stations.

The Verbio expansion of the existing biogas plants in Zörbig and Schwedt in Germany are running on schedule and are expected to be complete by the end of 2012 or the beginning of 2013, increasing capacity to a total of 125MW.

However, the company says that it has revised down its total biogas production for this year to 180GWh because of technical problems at the beginning of the year which delayed biogas production and stalled the start-up at production facilities.