Abengoa Bioenergy Corp. plans to temporarily close two of its biofuel plants, including one in Portales, because of depressed market conditions, Abengoa Executive Vice President Chris Standlee told the Portales News-Tribune.
“There’s some really depressed market conditions right now, so we just made the decision to temporarily stop production and begin an extensive maintenance plan, so we’ll be ready to be up and running when conditions improve,” Standlee told the News-Tribune.
“But for now, we’ve made the decision that we have to shut down because of these market conditions,” Standlee said.
The Portales plant has about 45 employees and has the capacity to produce 30 million gallons of ethanol a year from grain sorghum, the News-Tribune said.
The other plant to be closed is in Colwich, Kan., the paper reported.
“Those are our two smallest plants,” Standlee told the News-Tribune. “They don’t have the economies of scale that the larger plants have.”
An exact closing date for both plants has yet to be determined, but is expected to be some time in the first week of January, Standlee told the paper. How long the plants will stay closed also is dependent on market conditions.
