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Making investments in renewable fuels

An Indiana-based refinery is making moves to increase demand for soybeans. 

CountryMark’s $100 million diesel expansion project will allow for increased production of renewable diesel. 

CEO Matt Smorch tells Brownfield, “It’s also going to give us the capability to run about up to 20 million gallons of soybean oil and co-process that soybean oil in our facility. For the local farming community, it’s another opportunity to move the pile.”

He says the liquid fuel market is crucial to creating new domestic demand opportunities for soybeans, but it will take time for it to fully mature. 

“Liquid fuels are going to be around for a long time and ag today is not only just feeding the world, but it’s also energy, it’s tied to the energy business,” he says. “Anytime that we can use more energy, more liquid fuels, I think it benefits the agricultural community.”

Indiana Farm Bureau president and Posey County farmer Randy Kron says increasing domestic demand opportunities is critical for farmers as they grapple with a struggling ag economy. 

“Exports are influx a little bit,” he says. “We don’t really know what is going on. It’s pretty volatile and having a domestic market, a domestic use that you know is going to be constant year in and year out.”

Indiana State Department of Agriculture Director Don Lamb says it’s always good for the state when agriculture is helping drive economic development. 

“They’re estimating that it will take somewhere around a quarter of a million acres to supply the soybeans that would go into this fuel,” he says. “That demand is going to be felt across the soybean industry.”