Gevo, a company looking to turn ethanol-based alcohol into jet fuel, says its plans for a billion-dollar site in Lake Preston, SD, are on pause as it moves those operations to North Dakota.
The Colorado-based company behind the billion-dollar plant is currently publicly traded on NASDAQ at $2.42 a share, classifying it as a penny stock. The company's CEO had hinted at the possibility of switching its Alcohol-to-Jet capability to North Dakota earlier this year.
Those words showed truth when Gevo filed a report with the US Securities and Exchange Commission saying it had received permission to explore changes to its $1.46 billion loan agreement with the US Department of Energy, or DOE.
Although the loan was originally earmarked for the Lake Preston, SD, site, the filing said Gevo has received permission from the DOE to potentially modify the scope of its loan to create an Alcohol-to-Jet (ATJ) facility that would produce 30 million gallons of jet fuel at a site in North Dakota. That's roughly half the amount of fuel the Lake Preston site was supposed to produce annually. The project would also allow the facility to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to be for enhanced oil recovery.
In April, Gevo’s CEO told SDPB if there wasn’t a chance for Summit Carbon Solution’s carbon pipeline in South Dakota it would move its corn-to-jet-fuel operations to an ethanol plant it bought in Richardton, ND.
He called South Dakota blocking Summit’s pipeline a “blessing in disguise” because Gevo went from a company earning money to making money. He said when it became clear South Dakota was trending towards blocking the project by banning eminent domain, Gevo began to look for other sites that had less risk. That led them to the Richardton, ND, site.
He said the Richardton site offers financial savings compared to the Lake Preston site. At the Richardton site an ethanol plant is already built, and carbon sequestration is already operatable. Gruber said that allows Gevo to cash in on real carbon credits right now. Gevo plans to sell the carbon credits to other companies wanting to offset their carbon footprints.
However, he said the experience over HB 1052, the bill that many deemed a kill shot to Summit's pipeline in South Dakota, shined light on something further.
"It brings into context the stark contrast in South Dakota versus North Dakota,” Gruber said.
It's not the first time Gruber has criticized the state for how it does business. However, he clarified the specific difference between the two Dakotas: North Dakota has a clear, unified identity as exporters of energy and food.
“And that’s how they view themselves and they want to make more, and bro, that’s what they want to do," Gruber said. "That’s a very clear vision, very clear alignment, the business leaders are aligned, the population is aligned. And so that makes it a great place to do business.”
Gruber said that doesn’t exist right now in South Dakota. However, he said there’s plenty of time to change that narrative. He believes 70 of the nation’s ethanol plants are going to fill the need of future jet fuel shortages. He said that gives South Dakota time to “cool their jets” and find a path forward.
South Dakota offered Gevo a $12 million tax rebate on the condition it built its alcohol-to-jet fuel plant on the Lake Preston site, but none of that money has been used. Gruber said North Dakota, in contrast, offers some better alternatives than a rebate.
"Sometimes it's grants, sometimes it's money set aside for development," Gruber said. "But it's a rich state where they've got a lot of oil revenues, and they reinvest it. So, it's about capital projects, it's about deploying infrastructure. It's a bunch of these things. They're trying to figure out ways to attract business and they're using their resources to make that happen."
He called North Dakota's approach "pragmatic." Similar approaches to attracting businesses into South Dakota have become major talking points of the 2026 Gubernatorial race.
Jon Hansen, the state Speaker of the House, took to social media calling the state's conditional rebate "corporate welfare" and an abuse of economic development.
South Dakota Searchlight's John Hult reported other gubernatorial candidates had mixed reactions to Gevo's plan to officially make the change to the Richardton site.
He reassured the Lake Preston site is still in play; the timing just isn’t right.
“Lake Preston is a great site, so nothing fundamentally has changed. You know, there’s a great corn supply, great infrastructure availability, great rail, it’s a good workforce," Gruber said. "You know, all those things are great. There’s nothing wrong with it. We’re going to keep the site, and we’ll develop the site. I just don’t know when exactly we’re going to develop it.”
He said what that looks like isn’t clear and is probably a conversation that could change and evolve over the next decade.
