http://www.thespec.com/news-story/4283561-biox-bounces-back-with-a-strong-year/
BIOX bounces back with a strong year
New regulations provide a boost to refinery
By Lisa Marr
BIOX is back.
The Hamilton biodiesel refinery finished last year by closing down its
Hamilton operations, laying off 17 staff and cancelling its plans to
build a secondary facility in the New York harbour.
But early in 2013, BIOX hired back that staff and has been running at
full capacity since the beginning of February.
BIOX has a head office in Oakville but runs its 67 million litre a year
production facility on Oliver Street in Hamilton's industrial north end.
It has a patented production process capable of producing high quality,
renewable, biodegradable biodiesel fuel using a variety of feedstocks,
from seed oils to animal fats to recovered vegetable oils. It now has 42
employees.
In March it signed a deal with Shell Canada to sell biodiesel for
blending, and completed an interterminal pipeline to Shell's facility
next to the plant in the Hamilton Harbour in August.
It is a significant move for the company, said Chris Clinning, BIOX
executive vice president and CFO.
"The Canadian market has been slow to develop relative to the U.S. There
wasn't really a market in Ontario (before) which was unfortunate because
the idea (of biodiesel) is to cut down on greenhouse gases and we were
shipping into the States."
The outlook posted in the public company's fourth-quarter results
published earlier in December reflected the increasing strength in the
domestic market, particularly Ontario, for biodiesel.
That in part is due to the provincial Liberal government's move to
establish regulations earlier this year for a new diesel mandate (which
just finished public review) that will require fuel suppliers to blend
an average of 2 per cent in their overall diesel and home heating pool
by 2014. That increases to 4 per cent in 2016.
The financial report noted: "Under the supply agreement, BIOX is
supplying Shell Canada with a secure, stable supply of biodiesel through
the interterminal pipeline between the two facilities. Management
believes that, in time, the supply of biodiesel under this agreement has
the potential to become a significant portion of BIOX's Hamilton
production given the proposed implementation of an Ontario mandate and
as the Canadian Renewable Fuel Content Regulations extend eastward into
Quebec and the Atlantic provinces."
The company also reported a net loss of $1 million in the 2013 fourth
quarter compared to a net loss of $11.6 million in 2012.
So things are better, but still a bit uncertain, said Clinning.
Clinning said while the Canadian government has a similar biodiesel
requirement, the supply was met by other refineries, mostly foreign. In
addition, the demand for biodiesel in the western provinces which has
higher mandated biodiesel requirements, was being met by northern U.S.
companies.
At the same time, several regulatory issues in the U.S. have created
increased uncertainty in the markets there, he said.
In Ontario, Clinning said, there are a few other smaller biodiesel
refineries, so there is competition. But if the demand increases with
the domestic regulatory changes, that should add stability for the market.
--
Darryl McMahon
Failure is not an option;
it comes standard.
_______________________________________________
Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list
Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org
http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
