Greenfield buys U.S. ethanol plant

The closed Minnesota plant is the first foray into the U.S. for the Canadian company

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Published: October 23, 2020

The Corn Plus plant is in Winnebago, Minnesota.

Canada’s largest fuel ethanol producer will acquire the 182 million litre per-year Corn Plus ethanol facility in Winnebago, Minnesota, marking Greenfield Global’s first plant in the U.S.

The Corn Plus facility makes ethanol for the purpose of blending into gasoline and has been shuttered since September 2019.

“This ushers in a new era of North American production for Greenfield,” said Howard Field, president and CEO of Greenfield Global.

”We are excited to join producers in the United States in making the world’s cleanest and most accessible biofuel. The addition of Corn Plus to our biofuels portfolio complements our strategy of being a leading producer of renewable energy solutions and enhances our ability to service low-carbon fuel markets more effectively and efficiently.”

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North American fuel markets will continue to operate as an increasingly interconnected supply chain given the market challenges of COVID-19, coupled with the recent coming into force of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

Greenfield Global’s addition of a United States based-corn ethanol facility provides the company with a larger and more diverse geographic footprint from which to operate. Greenfield Global purchased the Corn Plus facility in a receivership process. The company expects to produce fuel ethanol and its co-products once a startup plan is established.

Greenfield is the largest ethanol producer in Canada and owns and operates four ethanol distilleries, five specialty chemical manufacturing and packaging plants, and three next generation biofuel and renewable energy R&D centers in Canada and the United States.

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