Skip to Main Content
Nov 20, 2018

Planning Ahead for Your Energy Needs

By Chad Larson - Energy Sales Manager

As most of you have wrapped, or are about to wrap harvest, I want to recap 2018 and some of the things we want to proactively approach for next year.

First, soy methyl ester. This year was the first year we were required to run 20% soy or B20 in our petroleum diesel fuel in Minnesota.  For 2019, the mandate will require the start period to be April 1st of 2019, versus May 1st 2018 this year.  As you all know, how last spring went, the idea of 20% soy as early as April 1st keeps me up at night.  Please know as a farmer cooperative we support any promotion of soybeans, like soy in diesel fuel.  However, we must be mindful and do our due diligence and make sure your equipment, which we all know, with smaller and smaller micron fuel filters is more sensitive than the tractors of the ’70s and ’80s, stays running year around, especially in cooler temps.

There is a fix or a solution.  As mentioned in prior articles, there is a clause in the soy-mandate.  If you the customer between now and April 1st, 2019 lock in diesel fuel with money down, either full prepay or partial prepay, you can legally run B5 or 5% soy in the diesel year around.  This clause will take a lot of stress off you in years where we stay cool late into spring or we have an early cold fall.  I could understand the higher soy mandate if we still ran equipment with less tighter tolerances, but that’s not the case with our equipment today.

Starting in December, our sales staff will be re-visiting this with you, as we want you to be well informed. Especially with this coming spring starting with the 20% soy mandate in April.  We will keep you informed of price opportunities and make sure you have a chance to capitalize on the mandate clause to help manage soy concentrations in your fuel for this year.

Lastly, if you trade any equipment this late fall early winter, please ask us about the Cenex Total Protection Plan Warranty.  With shop rates and parts what they are (the same as when corn was $7.00) it is a good insurance policy against expensive repairs.  The Deere and CaseIH Quadtracs can get into $70,000 in repairs if you’re talking transmissions.  All it takes is a phone call, myself and my staff will manage the rest. 

Please see the web-article where Mike Scott, Janesville Sales Associate presents a Cenex TTP Warranty check to Brian Loeffler

View News