CLEARFIELD – Although local corn-based ethanol producer Bionol Clearfield LLC announced its filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last week, the Clearfield County Commissioners said on Tuesday that the current-year budget wouldn’t be adversely affected.
According to Commissioner Joan Robinson-McMillen, Bionol Clearfield LLC has already paid its property taxes to both the county and Clearfield Borough. Because uncertainty surrounded how much revenue would be received from the plant, the county didn’t include any when preparing its current-year budget.
Robinson-McMillen said the school district hadn’t received any property tax revenue from the plant and believed its tax bill went out sometime next month. When asked how much revenue was paid to the county from the plant, Robinson-McMillen couldn’t say for sure off-hand.
When asked Tuesday morning by GantDaily.com, Jennifer Wooster, director of the Clearfield County Assessment Office and Tax Claim Bureau, said if property taxes were paid at face value, it would have amounted to $90,034.88. However, if it paid taxes at a discounted rate, it would have paid $88,234.18.
A call to the Clearfield Borough Tax Collector’s office revealed that Bionol Clearfield LLC has paid the county $93,100.33 in property taxes. It has additionally paid $125,811.25 to Clearfield Borough, according to Annette Renaud of the tax collector’s office.
“Right now, we just have to wait and see if there are any buyers interested (in the plant),” Commissioner Mark McCracken said. “We’re hoping some entity comes in, continues to operate it as an ethanol plant and employs people.”
At Monday night’s school board meeting, when Business Administrator Sam Maney was asked how the district’s finances would be affected by Bionol’s bankruptcy filing, he indicated the district was expecting to receive $465,000 in tax revenues from the plant. He said the district had not yet been paid, as the bill was set to go out next month.
According to previous GantDaily.com reports, Clearfield Bionol LLC, along with its affiliates Bioenergy Holdings and Bionol Holdings, announced last week their filing for Chapter 7 liquidation bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.
Court documents indicate that Bionol lists assets between $50 and $100 million as well as liabilities of between $100 and $500 million. The company, which produces bio-based chemicals and fuels from renewable feedstock, listed about 100 to 200 creditors, according to Reuters.com.
Bionol is a producer of fuel grade, corn-based ethanol and its by-products, wet and dry distillers grains. The company operates a 110-million gallon per year plant that opened in 2010 and was transitioned into a “hot idle” state in June 2011.
Prior to initiating operations, Bionol entered into an off-take agreement with Getty Petroleum Marketing Inc., and Getty was to purchase all the ethanol produced by Bionol at rates absorbable to the risk in the commodity markets. Getty defaulted on that agreement last year, and Bionol has been selling its ethanol on the open market since then.
“Bionol’s claims arising from Getty’s default is the subject of an ongoing arbitration process,” the company stated in a press release. “As a result of the wild fluctuations in the corn and ethanol markets, Bionol kept the plant in a hot idle status in June 2011 following a week of summer maintenance shut down.”
Bionol anticipated that its assets would be sold through bankruptcy proceedings as a functioning ethanol plant. According to the company, the sale process may require four to six months to complete and would be dependent on the judgment of its appointed bankruptcy trustee and subject to court approval.
The plant’s construction was initiated in April of 2008 and cost $275 million. It received approximately $22 million in state funding, according to prior Gantdaily.com reports.
