There will be competition for troubled Spanish firm Abengoa SA’s ethanol plants in the US, to be auctioned on August 22, especially as the US is preparing for a bumper corn harvest.

In June the company said it has received bids of around USD 350 million (EUR 318m) for the four plants with a combined capacity of 326 million gallons. Bloomberg said recently that Abengoa also got new offers in July.

The news agency cited Christopher Wu, a partner at Carl Marks Advisors, as saying that more firms have indicated that they are interested in bidding.

The US Department of Agriculture expects 14.5 billion bushels of corn to be harvested this year and fuel demand is also high. Even companies that currently do not own ethanol production capacity are interested in acquiring some, Bloomberg said.

The bids announced by Abengoa in June came from Green Plains Inc, Kaapa Ethanol LLC and BioUrja Trading LLC.

 

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