Poet Biofuels takes one of its biggest plants offline, due to the ripple effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
As the coronavirus calls for people to stay inside and off the roads, the ethanol markets continue to decrease. Emily Skor, the CEO of Growth Energy, says, “Fuel demand is cratered, foreign nations are flooding the markets with crude oil, and U.S. ethanol producers are bleeding cash.” This will only lead to more plants being shutdown and productions stalled, which will ultimately lead to job loss.
Other sectors affected by this are the corn and grain markets. In the month of April, fuel demand dropped more than 50 percent. If these numbers continue for the year, it equates to eight billion gallons of ethanol lost or 2.7 billion bushels of corn.
