Valero Energy to expand diesel plant in 2022
Valero Energy Corporation will put into operation the expansion of a diesel plant in the United States in 2021.
The plant is owned by Diamond Green Diesel Holdings LLC (DGD), an alliance between Valero Energy and Darling Ingredients Inc.
DGD began an expansion of the DGD Plant in 2019 and is expected to increase its production of renewable diesel by 400 million gallons per year.
Valero Energy plans for construction to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2021.
In addition, in January 2021, the company and Darling approved the construction of a new 470 million gallon per year renewable diesel plant that will be located adjacent to its Port Arthur refinery in Port Arthur, Texas.
It also expects the new plant to increase DGD’s total renewable diesel production capacity to nearly 1.2 billion gallons per year.
Valero Energy
The DGD plant is located next to the St. Charles refinery in Norco, Louisiana, and its production capacity is 290 million gallons of renewable diesel per year.
Renewable diesel is a low-carbon transportation fuel.
Also this energy is interchangeable with diesel produced from petroleum and is produced from recycled and extracted materials, including animal fats, used cooking oils and other vegetable oils.
Today, the DGD Plant receives smelted and recycled materials mainly by rail and third-party trucks.
DGD is party to a raw material supply agreement with Darling whereby Darling is obliged to offer DGD a portion of its raw material requirements at competitive prices, but DGD is not obliged to purchase all or part of its material cousin to Darling.
Therefore, DGD seeks the lowest cost raw material supply available.
Capital
Valero Energy’s investment activities, for $ 2.4 billion, consisted of $ 2.5 billion in equity investments, as defined below:
- 548 million were related to capital investments self-financed by DGD.
- 251 million were related to capital expenditures of VIE other than DGD.
Other financing activities of $ 2.5 billion mainly consisted of:
- 1.6 billion in dividend payments.
- 490 million in debt payments and financial lease obligations.
- 208 million to pay distributions to minority interests.
- 156 million for the purchase of common shares for treasury.
