MOSCOW (MRC) -- POET announced it has purchased Flint Hills Resources ethanol assets in its entirety, expanding POET's ethanol production capabilities to 3bn gallons/year, said the company, said the company.
POET said on Tuesday it has acquired Flint Hills Resources' entire ethanol business, highlighting the largest U.S. biofuels producer's bet that conventional renewable fuels like corn-based ethanol will play a role in reducing carbon emissions.
The deal will boost POET's ethanol production capacity by 40% to 3 billion gallons per year, the company said.
The United States is the world's largest producer of ethanol. Before the coronavirus pandemic, U.S producers made 15.8 billion gallons of ethanol in 2019, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Ethanol and ethanol-gasoline mixtures burn cleaner than pure gasoline. Producing and burning ethanol still results in carbon emissions, though its effect on net emissions depends on how it is made, according to the EIA.
Financial details of the purchase have yet to be disclosed.
Ethanol is used as a gasoline blendstock, in pharmaceuticals, and in food and beverage applications, such as hand sanitizers and vodka.
The deal was announced in May this year.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of PE and PP, respectively.
According to MR''s ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 576,270 tonnes in the first three month of 2021, up by 4% year on year. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) shipments increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 410,890 tonnes in January-March 2021, up by 56% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.
Flint Hills, a refining, biofuels and petrochemical company, is based in Wichita, Kansas, and is currently the fifth-largest ethanol producer in the United States. Its biofuels division includes six ethanol plants with a combined capacity of about 800 million gallons per year, 1.5 million tons of distillers grains and about 200 million pounds of corn oil.
MRC