Ethanol bill earns Illinois cash, boosts struggling market

Quincy Journal
3/20/12, by Anthony Brino, Illinois Statehouse News

The bill also would create a new 10 percent sales tax credit for E20 gasoline and offer $20 million a year in grants, with $15 million going to ethanol companies for research and $5 million a year to gas stations to set up flex-fuel pumps

SPRINGFIELD — Illinois biofuel companies, like Marquis Energy, have been struggling to sell their ethanol in the United States since a federal tax credit on ethanol-blended gasoline expired in December, leaving the market glutted.

Marquis Energy in Hennepin has been turning Illinois corn into 100 million gallons of ethanol a year since 2008 — part of a biofuel boom over the past decade that helped make almost all regular gasoline sold in the U.S. 10 percent ethanol, called E10.

Now there’s more ethanol in the U.S. than American drivers are buying. “Since January, we've had some very tight (profit) margins” said Jason Marquis, the company’s plant manager and son of its founder, Mark Marquis.

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