By Dave Thompson, CVAC Chairman
Spring was late in coming again this year. When it did come most of the crop went in fairly quickly in much of the CVAC membership area. Extreme rainfall caused planting delays for some farmers in the southern part of the CVAC territory.
On the good news side, the EPA recently announced an emergency waiver again this year to allow E-15 sales year around. This is good news for the ethanol industry, the retailers, and the consumers. It avoids confusion at the pump and allows consumers the opportunity to save money on a cleaner burning fuel that is better for the environment during the summer driving season.
2023 is shaping up to be another solid year for CVAC. After a modest start to the year and the traditional lack luster performance in January and February, strong margins in March and April have brought our year to date income through April to over $11,000,000. With the summer driving season approaching and Covid mostly in the rear view mirror we are optimistic about more good margins in the months ahead.
There is no new news to report on the carbon front. As we have indicated previously, we continue to be very interested in the Summit pipeline. Routing challenges and a number of other issues have slowed progress significantly from what was expected. We continue our due diligence so that when/if we sign on with Summit we know what we are getting.
The story for solar is similar to Summit. Gathering information and analyzing the cost/benefit data is taking longer than expected. At CVAC we never rush into anything. We only have one chance to get it right and we make every effort to do just that.
At CVAC we always continue to look at a wide array of potential projects and improvements to make our plant more efficient and profitable. We also continue to look at potential investments in other plants. Our track record over the years has been exceptional as we have built a nice portfolio of ownership in other plants that has brought a lot of income and value to CVAC. On all of our capital expenditures, internal and external, we try to take a long term view to attempt to visualize the impact to CVAC over the next 5 to 10 years and not to get too distracted over current fluctuating market trends.
The first week in September, as we have in the past, we plan to have a member information meeting to bring you up to date on all the latest events at CVAC and have some projections on what our year end income might look like.
Have a great summer!
