Replies to post #30022 on Alto Ingredients Inc (ALTO)

[Dutch1]

Thank you for acknowledging that due to market situations, Ethanol production companies in general, and PEIX in particular have problems running making a profit with their plants, making it probably unwise to restart idled plants at this time, which was the whole point of this discussion.

[Dutch1]

This February article on the profitability of Ethanol plants gives a lot of insight.

https://www.ocj.com/2019/02/tough-stretch-for-ethanol-profitability/

A model of a representative Iowa ethanol plant was used to track the profitability of ethanol production.

This model has been used for used to calculate profitability of Ethanol plants with the current market situations for years.

A conclusion:

The fortunes of the U.S. ethanol industry are unlikely to improve until production and use are better balanced. This will require shuttering some production capacity, additional demand, or some combination of the two. The most optimistic scenario is additional demand for U.S. ethanol exports as part of a trade deal with China.

Also this link supplies some more information: https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2019/02/how-tough-of-a-year-was-2018-for-ethanol-production-profits.html

For more recent information on profitability, this link gives information on corn prices compared with value of processing products for Iowa ethanol plants

https://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/nw_gr212.txt