BioFuels Journal spoke with Jeff Strouburg, CEO for Renewable Energy Group (REG), Aug. 12, about the state of the biodiesel industry and the alternative feedstock plant resurrected in Seneca, IL.
Highlights From the Podcast
• REG reopened a 60 million-gallon-per-year plant in Seneca, IL that had gone bankrupt in 2009.
• The plant can take high free fatty acid (FFAs) feedstocks such as corn oil extracted from ethanol plant’s DDGS, animal fats and used cooking oil.
• Illinois has tax incentives which create a demand in that area, increasing profits for local plants.
• With the $1 per gallon tax credit expired at the end of 2009, REG wants it first extended to provide assurance to its customers. Plus, the tax credit should be for producers, not blenders, which should be multi-year to give confidence to customers and investors.
• The biodiesel industry will provide enough production of fuel to meet for the Renwable Fuels Standard(RFS), providing enough biodiesel to be blended with petroleum. That may nullify a lawsuit filed against the EPA by the petroleum industry stating there would not be enough biodiesel to meet the requirement.
Biography
Jeff Stroburg has served as Renewable Energy Group’s (REG) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and chairman of the board since 2006.
Stroburg serves as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of West Central Cooperative, a position he has held since October 1999. West Central is a diversified grain handling, soybean-processing and agronomy cooperative with annual sales of $550 million. West Central operates a licensed public grain warehouse; provides grain marketing services; processes soybeans; manufactures specialty nutrition and herd health aids for the dairy industry and provides a broad range of agronomy inputs and services. In 2006 West Central consolidated its biodiesel activities to form a separate company, Renewable Energy Group (REG).
Stroburg was Vice President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the Eastern Ag Region of Land O'Lakes, an agricultural cooperative.
Prior to that Stroburg was President and CEO of Countrymark Cooperative, a refiner and distributor of diesel, gasoline and other petroleum products with operations that include a petroleum refinery and pipeline system.
Stroburg has also served as President and CEO of Hamilton Farm Bureau Cooperative in Michigan and held positions within the Missouri Farmers Association.
Stroburg also served on the Board of Directors for A.C. Toepfer International, a Hamburg, Germany, trading company for agricultural products, and on the Board of Directors for CF Industries, a fertilizer manufacturing company.
Stroburg currently serves on the Board of Directors for the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, Associated Benefits Corporation, Biosciences Alliance of Iowa and Iowa State University's Center for Crops Utilization Research Industry/Stakeholder Advisory Board.
Stroburg is on the Board of Trustees for the Graduate Institute of Cooperative Leadership (GICL), an institute within the University of Missouri at Columbia.
For more information, call REG at 515-239-8118.
