Pacific Ethanol’s second-quarter profit rises as sales almost double
Source: By Allen Young, Sacramento Business Journal • Posted: Thursday, July 28, 2016
The ethanol producer posted $5.09 million in net income available to the company, up from $1.01 million in the year-earlier quarter. Both figures exclude $315,000 in dividends paid to preferred stockholders.
Neil Koehler, Pacific Ethanol
Dennis McCoy | Sacramento Business Journal
Revenue rose 86 percent to $422.9 million, Pacific Ethanol said in a statementWednesday.
The gains show the Sacramento-based ethanol producer benefitting from growing global demand for ethanol and greater volumes of production following last year’s acquisition of a Midwestern ethanol company, said company CEO Neil Koehler.
The improving assets “allowed us to generate significant operating income within a stronger market environment,” Koehler said in the news release.
Pacific Ethanol (Nasdaq: PEIX) shares have risen 85 percent over the past six months.
The company sold 233.2 million gallons of ethanol in the second quarter, 65 percent more than a year earlier.
In March, the company finished paying off a remaining $17 million in debt on four ethanol plants that went bankrupt in 2009 as ethanol demand sunk during the recession.
Pacific Ethanol now owns eight ethanol plants in five states. It became the nation’s sixth-largest ethanol producer last summer after acquiring Illinois-based Aventine Renewable Energy Holdings Inc. in a $184 million deal.