The Inside Story of Renewable Energy Group, as CEO Dan Oh Visits with The Digest

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ... In many ways, REG is the entire industrial biotech business in a nutshell. They’re fermentation (through REG Life Sciences), and thermocatalytic (through REG Geismar and their extensive biodiesel business). They use both sugars and lipids as feedstocks. They make both biodiesel and drop-in renewable diesel. They make fuels and an array of chemicals. They’re in the distribution and blending business — distributing their fuels blended with traditional fossil distillates. They have multiple plants and labs in the West, Midwest and Eastern sections of the country. They’re deep into some of the most exotic commercial synthetic biology out there.
In other ways, they achieve what others aspire to. Multi-feedstock, multi-product — it’s a reality, not a goal. Publicly traded after a successful IPO — a reality. Generating substantial cash flow — a reality. And don’t let the “aw, shucks” demeanor fool you for a moment — if they don’t “talk the talk” with the hyperbole of Silicon Valley, they “walk the walk” when it comes to building capacity, building revenues, and building reputation.
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Lipids are a worldwide business as are sugars, and we are looking for base platforms that we can grow and adapt, with a focus on the distillate area and the intermediate specialty chemicals. Right now, we’re building out biomass based diesel across North America, and ultimately taking it international, based on fundamental internal growth, M&A,plus technology upgrading and innovation. We’re generating great cash flow from advanced biofuels, and we have array of technology options out there, so we have got so many good choices that it is almost about what you’re not going to do rather than what you’re going to do.
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Money’s not brave. Wall Street want to see profitable companies, they want to see the downside protected and lots of upside. In our case, we are building an industrial business that happens to be green, and I think we’re getting credibility as an industrial company, with strong balance sheet, and looking backwards, over 100M in EBITDA each year on average. Our strategy is born from practical needs and experience, in the end, you’ve got to run a business, and be subject to standard finance practice just like everyone else, and let’s face it, all companies have a hard time raising money [at this stage].
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Advanced biofuels do have broad bipartisan support, in each region and state there are a body of politicians who see the benefits, and in general things come up on the “happy and satisfied” side of the scale when they look at the sector. we’ve talked wide and far to lots and lots of people,and we’re confident that that support is going to continue, and in fact the declining energy prices make it simpler for people to think about the good aspects of our energy policy in energy security, environment when there’s less extra cost pressure from energy, and it is a heck of a lot easier to absorb costs [from advanced technologies] into a low cost energy mix.
Our job is simple: we have to make quality fuel, we have to be affordable, we have to compete. But every gallon of biodiesel makes it easier to achieve the broader energy policy goals of diversifying the energy mix — and the benefit of biofuels on the agricultural sector are not difficult to see and there are more sectors that are benefitting from it, such as advanced manufacturing and high tech. Bottom line, you can be a hard core neoconservative, hard core environmentalist, or only interested in agriculture or some other industry, and you’ll find lots to like about advanced biofuels. READ MORE