FARLEY, Iowa -- Tom Brooks has heard plenty of scuttlebutt about the Western Dubuque Biodiesel plant lately.
"The most lavish rumor was that the plant was sold and the doors are closed," said Brooks, general manager at the plant.
Although some of the rumors have been far-fetched, Western Dubuque Biodiesel LLC has been operating at a reduced rate since the first of the year thanks to high commodity prices.
But the facility is not entertaining any plans to close, Brooks said.
The operation has been running at a reduced rate since soybean oil prices started climbing, at one point approaching an unprecedented
70 cents per gallon. Although the price has since fallen, Brooks said the plant is currently operating at about 66 percent capacity.
The decision to scale back production involved the operation's board of directors, according to Brooks.
"It was not just one or two people trying to decide what we're doing, it was a collective thought process," Brooks said.
Still, he said the slowdown is not impacting the facility's work force.
"Our workers have not been cut
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Brooks said they're keeping the staff at full operations by employing many of the training requirements for the new operation, including team building, supervisor development and environment safety.
About 20 plants nationwide have suspended or reduced operations and around five are closed permanently, according to Amber Thurlo Pearson, a spokeswoman for the National Biodiesel Board. That's out of 171 plants nationwide.
Excitement around the industry boom has been accompanied by rising prices for several years, according to Pearson, who said most new plants have been seeking to combat that by constructing plants that are capable of operating on multiple feedstocks.
"If there's any silver lining, it would be farmers did what they set out to do in raising the price for soybean oil," she said.
Still, Brooks said it is hard to keep reduced production from impacting employee confidence.
"There are apprehensions," he said, adding that there are concerns on all fronts in an industry facing the impact of a lower dollar and higher feedstock costs.
"The whole farm economy is just kind of out of whack. The commodity prices just went up too high too fast," said Bill Schueller, a member of the Western Dubuque Biodiesel Board of Directors.
"Everything just kind of needs to take a breather and settle down. It's done that to a certain extent already," said Schueller, who said soybean oil prices settled at 55.8 cents Tuesday.
Randy Olson, the executive director of the Iowa Biodiesel Board, agreed.
"It's not just soybean oil is high. Corn is high, wheat is high. There is evidence that this isn't one industry or one feedstock, but the whole basket of commodities that have higher costs," he said.
In a sense, Schueller and others involved with Western Dubuque are thankful they got the plant running when they did.
"It's a far different climate now than when we first started the biodiesel plant," said Schueller, who said soybean prices then were 22 cents per pound.
For now, he said the plant's managers are keeping an eye out for good prices and are pinning hopes on the upcoming warmer months.
The situation is a cause for concern, said Dubuque County Supervisor Wayne Demmer, but he still sees the plant as ahead of others in the industry.
"They're holding their own. Nobody's been laid off," Demmer said. "We knew when beans and corn took off that it's going to be tough for ethanol and biodiesel until things straighten out."
Demmer said he believed the plant operators would do what is possible to keep their current work force employed now that all of them are trained.
"Hopefully they can ride through this storm and stay with it, that's what it's all about," he said.
And Olson stresses that people need to focus on the larger picture of the importance of the product the plants are producing in mitigating the nation's dependence on foreign oil.
"It's very important when we think about the future, the health of our children and quality-of-life issues in general," he said.
