n THE CARILLON STEINBACH, MAN. C2
n www.thecarillon.com THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2025
MATTHEW FRANK THE CARILLON
Piles of dried distilled grain are one of the two byproducts from ethanol production. The grain can be used as livestock feed.
U.S. ethanol imports force out Canadian producers, domestic industry at risk: expert
by MATTHEW FRANK M anitoba ethanol producers and ex- perts are raising alarms that U.S. sub- sidized biofuel imports could push domestic biofuel production to the brink of collapse. The province’s only ethanol plant, located in Minnedosa, 240 kilometres west of Steinbach, will no longer be profitable by 2034 and could face layoffs or potentially shut down, said se- nior plant manager Avi Bahl. Owned by Calgary-based oil and gas firm Cenovus Energy, the Minnedosa Ethanol Plant produces more than 160 million litres of eth- anol annually. But due to heavily subsidized U.S. ethanol being imported at cheaper pric- es and favoured by federal policies, he said his plant can’t compete. “We’re not looking for handouts, we just want a level playing field,” Bahl told The Car- illon . In September the federal government an- nounced $370 million in measures to incen- tivize biofuel production, along with amend- ments to the Clean Fuel Regulation. However, no details were given on what the amendments are, and ethanol wasn’t included in the mea- sures. “I was so excited. I pull up my phone and thought ‘Oh, this is great,’” Bahl said. “Then we get more details a couple days later, and there’s nothing in there for ethanol.” He said there’s no federal policy that dif- ferentiates his ethanol from what’s imported from the U.S. The only thing that separates ethanol is whoever has the lowest carbon in- tensity, Bahl said, and that person gets the pre- mium price. In 2024, Canada imported 60 percent of its ethanol supply from the U.S., according to the Biofuels in Canada 2025 annual report. Since regulations in the U.S. allow for larg- er operations, pricing can be lower and more competitive with what he’s offering to buyers, he said. Bahl describes ethanol as a “marginal industry.” “It has tiny margins. And then some years you make money, some years you lose money, and it flips back and forth. You’re always hover- ing around that,” he said. If the 57-year-old plant shut down, Bahl said roughly 50 local jobs would be lost, grain farm- ers would lose a key buyer and Minnedosa would lose a revenue source. Forty trucks deliver grain per day, five days a week, to sustain the plant’s ethanol produc- tion. Annually, the plant processes 385,000 tonnes of corn. Since opening in 2008, the plant has spent $1.2 billion on Manitoba grain. He said the plant sources 85 percent of its corn from Southeastern Manitoba. Bahl would ramp production if he could, but since the province doesn’t produce enough corn domes- tically, he said the plant is forced to supply the rest from the U.S. Manitoba produced 1.7-million tonnes of grain corn in 2024 and still had to import more than $429 million worth of corn from the U.S., according to the province’s agriculture depart- ment. Not only is there not enough corn to supply his plant, Bahl said he has to compete against buyers who want the corn for silage and feed. The plant is also subject to industrial carbon taxes due to its need to operate a natural gas dryer for its unavoidable ethanol byproduct,
MATTHEW FRANK THE CARILLON
Bahal says there’s not enough corn produced in Manitoba to sustain ethanol production.
dried distilled grain. Bahl said the only reason the dry grain is needed is because feedlots are too far away to ship it wet because it would spoil faster. “We can’t sell it wet because we don’t have a big enough feed lot close by. So now I have to truck it and it needs to go three to four hours away. Now you’re shipping mainly water,” he said. Many of the U.S. ethanol plants are located near large livestock feedlots, which means they can ship the byproduct wet and ship more of it, removing the cost and the carbon emissions from needing a dryer, he said. Not needing a dryer gives American-made ethanol another competitive advantage when supplying Man- itoba compared to what’s made domestically, he said. ““I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Bahl said. Policy pain points Under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the federal government’s main environmental policy for fuel, the Clean Fuel Regulation, was established on June 21, 2022. It required the carbon intensity of fuel production, including ethanol, be reduced over time in exchange for compliance credits. The policy’s goal was to push producers to continually reduce their emissions and increase the amount of biofuels in their fuel mixes, regardless of where the bio- fuel originates. See “Preserving the industry’ on 3C
MATTHEW FRANK THE CARILLON The plant’s cooking pipes are crucial for converting the ground corn into ready-to-use fuel.
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