Cardinal Ethanol making money, expanding in Union City

The company in September completed $16.5 million in improvements designed to increase annual production from 120 million gallons to 135 million gallons. For 2017, the board of directors has approved a $9 million project to add more grain loading/storage facilities and more rail track, as well as a $4.4 million project to add a fermenter, another cooling tower cell and a beer degasser, according to the filing. The company in October purchased 64 acres of land adjacent to its plant for $646,000.

The $13.5 million in net income for 2016 looks meager compared to Cardinal Ethanol's earnings of $38.7 million in 2015 and $87.2 million in 2014.

CEO Jeff Painter, 60, who grew up on a family farm in New Castle, explained the change in profits to The Star Press: "We are a commodity-driven business. As with all commodities, the market determines pricing … we have very little influence over the prices we receive for our products and … we have limited control over the price we have to pay for inputs. Commodities are driven by supply and demand."

To produce 120 million gallons of ethanol a year, the plant needs about 42 million bushels of corn a year or about 115,000 bushels a day. The average price per gallon of ethanol last year was down 9 percent compared to 2015.