A biodiesel refinery project in Nevada has filed for chapter 11 protection after its plans to repurpose an existing facility went over-budget, WSJPro Bankruptcy reported. Las Vegas-based Ryze Renewables II, founded in 2017, defaulted on taxpayer-backed debt after a technology it adopted to repurpose an existing biofuels refinery proved to be defective, the company said in a filing on Thursday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. Ryze Renewables II planned to produce 7,500 barrels of renewable diesel a day through recycling nonedible renewable and waste feedstocks, according to court papers. Ryze took out a $198 million loan from Georgia’s Own Credit Union to partially fund a redesign of the refinery. The loan benefited from a 70% guarantee from the U.S. Department of Agriculture because Ryze used an emerging technology called Duke to help retrofit the existing refinery, court papers show. Ryze’s parent company also borrowed funds to buy the refinery site from a company called NC Industries LLC, an affiliate of Las Vegas-based contractor MMC Inc., and pledged its stake in Ryze Renewables II as collateral. As construction was under way, Ryze said it learned that the emerging technology it was using to rebuild the refinery had caused “engineering, mechanical, pollution, and safety issues, among others, at another refinery.” It scrapped its plans to use Duke, but the cost was in excess of the funds it had with a new technology it has identified to help build the refinery, the company said in the filing.
