KAAPA: Ethanol plant shutdown pushed back

KAAPA Partners Aurora announced this week that a planned shutdown of the Aurora ethanol plant will be delayed and shortened, with the latest changes expected to minimize the impact of grain delivery during this year’s harvest.
Blake Beno, KAAPA’s vice president of risk management, explained the change in schedule during an ANR interview, updating a report he offered at a meeting of the Hamilton County Corn Growers Association in late August. At that time, he announced that construction delays pushed back a planned shutdown from early September to approximately mid-October, right in the midst of harvest.
“So basically the updated plan is to take the plant down the 30th of October, giving us a couple more weeks to get through the gut slot of harvest,” he explained. “The main thing is we’re excited to be able to serve our core customers better through harvest as well as our distillers, corn oil and ethanol customers.”
During his August report, Beno had indicated that the Aurora plant is scheduled for renovations estimated to cost $70 million. The next phase of construction was expected to require a shutdown lasting up to five weeks, though that too has since changed.
“The other thing we’re excited about with pushing the downtime back is that we believe this may go from four to five weeks, to three,” he added. “So not only are we pushing it back to get through harvest, but we’re going to shorten it up. That’s really exciting for us.”
Noting that the harvest season has already begun, Beno said KAAPA’s expectation is to be able to handle all its contracted grain purchases in 2023.
“Right now we have a plan in place to be able to receive all of the grain that we have bought for fall,” he said. “So that’s really nice that we’re not going to have to make any alternate plans for those bushels.”
While talking about plant operations at the Aurora West site, Beno also noted that area producers may notice some changes this fall.
“The main pieces of the shutdown will be the same, but I will tell you that customers will start recognizing some changes that will happen before the plant goes done,” he said. “Some of the changes they will start to see is traffic flow changes on the property, which include a new scale house, two new in-bound scales, and two out-bound scales for corn, in an attempt to prevent any bottleneck with the corn we’re receiving.”
Beno concluded by saying that KAAPA is excited about its new partnership in the area.
“We’re glad to be in the Aurora area and we’ve already enjoyed meeting some of the producers in the area and participating with the Hamilton County Corn Growers, getting out and meeting people,” he said. “We would like to continue to do that even more.”
Farmers with questions about the harvest schedule or shutdown policies are encouraged to contact KAAPA Ethanol Holdings at 308-455-4195.

New partnership
KAAPA Ethanol Holdings, LLC (KAAPA) and Aurora Cooperative Elevator Company announced in late February that the parties had closed on a joint venture, forming a new company to be known as KAAPA Partners Aurora, LLC.
The new company now owns and operates the ethanol and grain facilities located west of Aurora. Once the deal was signed, KAAPA became majority owner and operator of the facilities, with Aurora Cooperative retaining a minority interest in the new company.
KAAPA Partners Aurora, LLC announced at that time that it intends to make significant investments in the ethanol and grain facilities with the goal of increasing production and efficiencies so that the ethanol plant may remain a destination for area farmers’ corn for many years to come.
Chuck Woodside, KAAPA’s CEO, said he is excited about the new partnership.
“We are excited to enter this partnership with Aurora Cooperative and look forward to expanding our customer base to the Aurora region,” he said in a press release. “The collaboration with our existing plants, along with significant improvements to the facility will make this plant a great addition to KAAPA.”