Valley Co. ethanol plant ensnared in VeraSun bankruptcy

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BY ART HOVEY / Lincoln Journal Star

ORD — If you like a rural setting, Valley County has plenty going for it.

Consider golden cornfields, contented cows and the North Loup River flowing through the fringes of the Nebraska Sandhills.

What Valley County does not have, as of mid-November, is an operating ethanol plant.

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Grain hopper cars sit idle Friday next to the VeraSun ethanol plant south of Ord. The plant is caught up in bankruptcy proceedings and has not operated since mid-November. (Art Hovey)

Grain hopper cars sit idle Friday next to the VeraSun ethanol plant south of Ord. The plant is caught up in bankruptcy proceedings and has not operated since mid-November. (Art Hovey)

Over the last three years, Val-E Ethanol became part of U.S. BioEnergy and U.S. BioEnergy merged with VeraSun. Then VeraSun evolved into a bankruptcy mess in late October, thanks largely to some wild gyrations in the corn market.

Creditors will meet again Tuesday with bankruptcy officials in Delaware, where VeraSun formed as a corporation earlier in this decade. They will be trying to sort out what to do about the thousands of contracts farmers signed to deliver corn to three plants in Nebraska and others in South Dakota and other states.

Dick Bossen, a farmer and grain elevator owner from nearby Arcadia, is among many with a financial stake in Chapter 11 proceedings. As of Friday, it appeared very possible, if not likely, that he is out at least $600,000.

Bossen sold about 200,000 bushels of corn for delivery to the VeraSun plant at Ord, located about 160 miles northwest of Lincoln, by next May. Unfortunately for him, the contract price of $6.40 a bushel is no longer the going rate.

Farmers are still legally bound to deliver corn to the nation’s second largest ethanol producer. But it appears that VeraSun, headquartered in Sioux Falls, S.D., may pay only the market price, which has plunged to about $3.40 a bushel since July.

Bossen did not sound optimistic about his chances for collecting at the contract rate as he took a break from the ethanol struggle and drove toward Lincoln to attend the Nebraska-Colorado football game.

“I would say my chances are only about 20 percent that might happen in some shape or form,” he said.

Loud as it was in Lincoln Friday afternoon, it couldn’t have been more quiet at the VeraSun plant a half-dozen miles south of Ord along Nebraska Highway 11.

Long lines of tanker cars and grain hopper cars sat idle and there was no cloud of vapor pouring skyward from the plant’s boiler stack to show progress toward the plant’s 50-million-gallon annual capacity.

The door to the office was locked and the interior was dark. Parked outside was a black pick-up truck with a logo boasting that it was powered by an 85 percent ethanol blend.

Things were much busier in Ord itself, as farmers unloaded corn into the growing piles next to the Cargill elevator and the nearby Country Partners Cooperative elevator.

Inside the business office, grain originator Josh Hollibaugh said the co-op’s management team in Spalding was also anxious about its business relationship with VeraSun.

“Our biggest concern is payment on what we deliver out there,” Hollibaugh said.

VeraSun is not the only ethanol company with plants in Nebraska that has been struggling against the adversity brought on by high corn prices and, more recently, by plunging petroleum prices.

The latter factor puts downward pressure on what grain-based energy producers can charge for their finished product.

Minnesota-based Advanced BioEnergy, which operates a plant at Fairmont and others in South Dakota, recently defaulted on a $10 million loan. Since then, Illinois-based Adventine stopped construction at a site near Aurora designed to produce more than 200 million gallons of ethanol  per year.

So far, VeraSun’s other plants at Albion and Central City are still operating.

Ord attorney Tom Kruml represents Trotter Inc., an area fertilizer and grain-buying business and one of five creditors chosen to travel to Delaware to represent trade groups and hundreds of others across the United States that VeraSun owes money.

“Between the Ord plant and the Central City plant, I would guess there are probably well in excess of 100 farmers involved,” Kruml said. “Some of those guys are looking at some very significant contract losses.”

One possible outcome, apart from the bankruptcy talks, is that VeraSun will be sold. Competitors Poet, Archer Daniels Midland or a petroleum company could emerge as the new owner.

“I won’t even speculate on that question,” Kruml said.

But back in the bankruptcy realm, Kruml said, “the thing people need to keep in mind is that there’s a lot of work behind the scenes to resolve this.”

Dick Bossen said the sale of VeraSun’s holdings could change the situation in a hurry. If that happened, the Ord plant “could be going in the next 30-60 days.”

Gaylord Boilesen, whose family owns an Ord auto parts store, was part of the group of local boosters who helped get an ethanol plant established in Valley County.

Much more recently, Boilesen has been part of the Delaware delegation. “We’re trying to help farmers get some voice in the contract situation — because that involves a ton of our customers.”

None of what’s happened so far has caused him to regret his involvement in promoting grain-based fuel. He still sees ethanol as part of the energy answer, as a source of feed byproducts for livestock, and as a key to rural economic development in Nebraska.

“I’m a firm believer in it,” he said.

Reach Art Hovey at 473-7223 or at ahovey@journalstar.com.