The Louisiana Board of Commerce and Industry is poised to cancel some economic incentives this week for an $80 million bioenergy plant in Lake Providence which was idled in 2016, only a few years after opening its doors.
Community organization Delta Interfaith which is supported by Together Louisiana, an advocacy group which has been pushing back against incentives for industrial projects across the state, called for state leaders to reconsider the bioenergy company's incentive package since the tax abatement contracts were not cancelled after the plant closed.
Myriant Technologies LLC, based in Quincy, Massachusetts and founded in 2009 as BioEnergy International, built a bio-based succinic acid plant at the Port of Lake Providence which opened in 2013.
The Louisiana plant on a 55-acre site was subsidized by a $50 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy and another $10 million from the Lake Providence Port Commission and the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development. There was also a $25 million bank loan backed by the USDA, which was repaid in 2018, according to the agency.
Myriant Technologies signed a 40-year lease with the Port of Lake Providence and had multi-year customer contracts at the time. It began operations about a year before the price of oil plummeted in 2014 and the hydraulic fracturing technology became widespread.
"The price of oil was below their cost of production (for the petroleum alternative)," said Wyly Gilfoil, executive director of the Port of Lake Providence about the market when Myriant opened its doors. "It was competing with oil-based (compounds) and when the price of oil dropped below a certain point it made them uncompetitive. The plant is still there, it's really sad to see it idle."
The facility sought to focus on using sorghum and carbon dioxide to produce up to 30 million pounds per year or 14,000 tons of succinic acid - which is typically produced from petroleum and can be used in polymers, fibers, detergents and flavors.
The company has been keeping up the maintenance at the site, considering white-label production for other businesses and even selling the plant, the port director said.
"It was an unforeseen circumstance, everybody was talking about peak oil (in the late 2000s) but now we're exporting natural gas. Things can change fairly rapidly," Gilfoil said.
Myriant, which is largely defunct, could not be reached for comment.
In 2018, Myriant was still the third largest taxpayer in East Carroll Parish with more than $2 million of assessed value in the parish behind two gas companies.
That same year, Myriant was acquired by Global Chemical Innovation America, a subsidiary of PTT Global Chemicals in North America as a venture capital group and research and development arm. PPT Global Chemicals, a major petrochemical business in Thailand with annual sales of more than $15 billion, was a major investor in Myriant and had chipped in $60 million in 2011 for the venture.
The Louisiana Board of Commerce and Industry is expected to vote in favor of cancelling more than a dozen Industrial Tax Exemption Program contracts with Myriant since it has not received proof of that the company has paid all its taxes at the plant since December 2017, only some of them. Myriant has 24 different ITEP contracts with LED. The company's incentives were continued after the plant closed in 2016 after receiving letters of local support from the parish.
The value of those contracts was not disclosed. LED has refused to provide further information, such as the agenda meeting packets where board members would see more details about the proposal.
A deal was struck during the administration of former Gov. Bobby Jindal for the 392,000-square-foot plant which was slated to create 49 full-time jobs in exchange for state economic incentives as well. But the workers hired at the site have since been laid off.
Myriant was eligible for workforce training in addition to a 6% tax rebate on payroll through the quality jobs program and up to 100% property tax abatement for 10 years through the Industrial Tax Exemption Program. Through the quality jobs program the company completed its contract for $15.9 million in payroll for 250 jobs, about 200 of which were construction supported.
Myriant Lake Providence LLC had $4.2 million in taxable value in East Carroll Parish in 2019 and was to pay $497,663, according to The Louisiana Tax Commission records. In 2018, the company was expected to pay $504,730 in property taxes. By comparison, Myriant's tax bill was only $166,746 in 2017 due to exemptions even while the plant was shut down.
Delta Interfaith members Percy Threats and Sister Bernadette Barrett said the recognition by LED that the company was unresponsive and had stopped operations and therefore should no longer be eligible for economic incentives was meaningful.
"It's a big achievement for us, we put together a lot of meetings and pushed for it," Threats said. "We got blessed."
Even if the board does not approve the cancellation, Threats said the organization will continue trying to push for it.
"We won't give up, we're in it for the long haul," he said.
Barrett said she's met with the company and was told it was running out of cash.
"I think (the company) was sincere about it and made an effort," she said.
But that she was disappointed that it look community organizers to speak up for the state to withdraw incentives.
"Somebody needs to hold them accountable, (the back taxes) is certainly going to help our community," she said. "We've been called all kinds of names in our community that we did this."
Editor's note: This story was changed on Feb. 24, 2020, in its reference to Together Louisiana.
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