Family-owned Irish company Clonbio Group announced that it will spend a further $400m (€366m) in a moth-balled biorefinery in Wisconsin, USA it acquired in mid 2022.

Clonbio has already spent $100m (€91m) on the acquisition and upgrading of the site, and now plans the increased investment as government incentives in the US means that the company can accelerate its plans for the site.

Originally, Clonbio had planned a decade-long development for the site, but the measures contained in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed by the US government means that it can now make that major investment over the coming years.

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The company said it has been invited by U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) to submit an application for a $400 million loan guarantee to enable investment that will create the most advanced grain biorefinery in the US.

The investment, which will lead to 1,000 direct and indirect jobs in the region, was announced during Enterprise Ireland’s programme of business events in the US for St. Patrick’s Day.

International footprint

Clonbio has a growing international footprint, with a major production facility based outside the Hungarian capital Budapest.

The company has no major facility in Ireland, and has expressed some frustration at Irish Government policy when it comes to the development of an anaerobic digestion (AD) industry here. They described the recent draft biomethane strategy as “a collection of musings on AD”, adding that the document “sends a signal that Ireland is not open to AD business”.

Clonbio made a profit after tax of €103m in 2022 and had retained earnings of €249m at the end of that year.