Omaha-based Green Plains is temporarily closing its Fairmont, Minn., ethanol plant, sidelining 55 workers amid an oversaturated market for the renewable biofuel.

The biorefining company laid off employees Jan. 17, according to a notice filed Jan. 15 with the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. The company could rehire workers "if and when" the facility reopens, which is Green Plains' "intent at some point in the future when market conditions allow," the notice said.

A Green Plains spokeswoman in Omaha attributed the closure to pressures from an over-supplied ethanol market, a weaker energy complex and elevated local corn basis levels — the difference between cash and futures prices — following spring flooding last year. The company continues to work on permits for dryers and new grain receiving with an eye toward reopening the Fairmont plant when margins return and carbon sequestration is online, according to the spokeswoman.

Green Plains' "Advantage Nebraska" carbon capture and storage project should be operational in the second half of 2025, with an expected overall capacity of up to 1.2 million tons per year, according to the company.

Fuel ethanol is made from fermented sugar, typically from corn, and often blended with gasoline. At the end of 2024, ethanol prices had dropped 25% through the year, according to CHS. The Inver Grove Heights-based cooperative also sold 44% less ethanol in its fourth fiscal quarter.

Low U.S. prices and increased international demand — mostly from Canada, Colombia, India and the United Kingdom — drove record exports last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

"We continue to experience tailwinds for ethanol exports ... as other countries ramp up their blend mandates in low-carbon programs," Green Plains CEO Todd Becker told investors during the company's third-quarter earnings call Oct. 31.

The company reported third-quarter net income of $48.2 million, compared to $22.3 million at the same time in 2023. The Fairmont plant is among the top ethanol producers in Minnesota, home to 18 fuel ethanol plants.

Green Plains acquired the Fairmont plant in 2013, paying First National Bank of Omaha $101 million in a deal that also included a plant in Wood River, Neb.

The Fairmont plant's previous owner, Denver-based BioFuel Energy Corp., had defaulted on its senior debt with the bank. The plant had been closed for more than a year after high corn prices in 2012 affected ethanol producers nationwide.

Brooks Johnson of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this report.