Gevo Inc. on Feb. 3 completed the previously announced acquisition of North Dakota-based Red Trail Energy LLC, including its ethanol plant, carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) assets and pore space. The company also confirmed plans to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) at the site, which has been renamed Net Zero North.
Gevo in September 2024 announced plans to acquire the assets of Red Trail Energy. Red Trail’s equity holders voted to approve the transaction in December.
According to Gevo, the acquisition closed for an aggregate purchase price of $210 million, subject to customary adjustments, including a working capital adjustment.
Chris Ryan, president and chief operating officer at Gevo, confirmed that the existing ethanol plant has the capacity to produce 67 MMgy, including 2 MMgy of corn fiber ethanol. The facility also has the capacity to produce 420 million pounds of animal fed and 18 million pounds of corn oil annually. In addition, the biorefinery sequesters approximately 160,000 metric tons per year of CO2.
Now that the transaction is complete, Ryan said Gevo plans to secure fuel pathways that will allow the facility to sell its low carbon intensity (CI) fuel into the California and Canadian markets. Gevo also plans to further decarbonize the biorefinery via the use of low-carbon energy, he added.
Ryan confirmed plans to implement an ethanol-to-jet facility at the Net Zero North location and said the company has already begun engineering that leverages work completed for Gevo’s planned Net Zero 1 facility in South Dakota. Gevo estimates it will take approximately three years to add SAF capacity to the North Dakota site. The available pore space for CCS at Net Zero North could also provide an opportunity to sequester CCS for Net Zero 1 if the planned CCS pipeline project that will service the proposed biorefinery stalls.
