World Energy acquires 72 million gpy Mississippi biodiesel plant from Elevance

US biodiesel producer World Energy has acquired from Elevance Natchez (ENI) a 72 million gpy biorefinery located on the Mississippi River in Natchez, Mississippi, US. 

World Energy has been supplying BQ9000-certified biodiesel from the currently fully staffed and operational plant under a production contract with ENI since January 2013.

Customers, employees, suppliers, and the Natchez community can expect little change in the transition to new ownership.

In June, World Energy and its joint venture partner Biox Corp. announced the acquisition of a 90 million gpy production plant known as World Energy Biox Biofuels (WEBB) located at the Kinder Morgan Liquid Fuels Terminal on the ship channel in Galena Park, Texas.

WEBB is now in its final stages of preparation for production start-up. 

Also in June, the companies announced the establishment of a 315,000 barrel multimodal biofuels distribution centre known as Houston Hub, which is co-located and co-operated with WEBB at Kinder Morgan's Galena Park Terminal.

Houston Hub is fully integrated into Houston's petroleum distribution network by truck, rail, barge, ship, and pipeline.

"Today's acquisition of ENI's Mississippi River plant expands on the initiatives we took earlier this summer with Biox," said Gene Gebolys, World Energy's CEO.

"Advanced Biofuels are here to stay, but they won't be fully mainstream until we integrate our 21^st Century fuels into the sprawling production and distribution complex established for traditional fuels in the 20^th Century.

That system originates in the US Gulf so we need to originate there too with both production and distribution,” Gebolys said, explaining the company’s reasoning in locating its production facilities in the south of the US.