Leadership change: Founder Patrick Gruber will move to executive chair while President Paul Bloom becomes CEO in April, a long‑planned succession that Gruber says leaves the company in a “super stable” position.
Operational priorities: Management is focused on improving profitability at the Gevo North Dakota (Richardton) site, debottlenecking capacity toward ~75 million gallons and advancing “Project Northstar,” a ~30M‑gallon ATJ plant for which the company is pursuing DOE and project‑level financing.
Market and financing outlook: Gevo cites a U.S. jet‑fuel shortfall (~2.3 billion gallons by 2035) as a scaling opportunity, expects ATJ30 installed capital of just over $500M, and says recent results imply a $150–$200M revenue run rate with a path toward substantially higher EBITDA and near‑term neutral to positive operating cash flow.
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Executives from Gevo (NASDAQ:GEVO) used a virtual non-deal roadshow hosted by Renmark Financial Communications to discuss a leadership transition and outline operational priorities tied to the company’s North Dakota assets and planned alcohol-to-jet expansion.
Patrick Gruber said the main purpose of the event was to address management succession, noting that he is the outgoing CEO and that Gevo President Paul Bloom will assume the CEO role starting in April. Gruber said he will remain involved as executive chair (and later chair) and described the timing as appropriate given his age and personal health history, while emphasizing that he views the company as being in a “super stable” position with a team in place to execute.
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Bloom thanked the board and Gruber for the appointment and outlined his background as a chemist with experience commercializing bio-based technologies. He cited roles that included early work as a coatings chemist, graduate studies in chemistry, and time at ADM where he worked on technology scale-up and commercialization, including co-product development and market building. Bloom said he has been with Gevo for five years, including roles as Chief Carbon Officer and Chief Business Officer, and characterized the CEO transition as long planned.
Bloom said near-term priorities center on continued profitability and increasing adjusted EBITDA at Gevo, North Dakota (the company’s acquired ethanol facility with carbon capture). He described last year as “transformational” following the acquisition and said the company has been monetizing tax credits and carbon while operating the commodity business.
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Bloom said the longer-term growth objective is execution of “Project Northstar,” described as Gevo’s ATJ30 (alcohol-to-jet) plant designed for roughly 30 million gallons. He said the company is working “daily” with the U.S. Department of Energy and others on financing for that facility, framing it as a step toward Gevo’s first large-scale alcohol-to-jet plant.
Bloom cited U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data, stating that by 2035 the United States will need an additional 2.3 billion gallons of jet fuel per year. He argued that few new refineries are being built and noted that only about 9% of a typical refinery barrel becomes jet fuel, positioning Gevo’s approach as a way to target jet fuel specifically from ethanol. Bloom and Gruber also discussed scaling, with Bloom saying the implied need could translate to “something like” 70 facilities of Gevo’s planned type to meet that demand.
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Executives emphasized that their strategy relies on “drop-in” fuels compatible with existing infrastructure, blending up to 50% with conventional jet fuel, and on building a “business system” that tracks sustainability attributes from farm to fuel. Bloom highlighted Gevo’s Verity platform as a tool to document practices and carbon intensity along the supply chain, which he said supports customer requirements for proof and traceability.
In response to a question about debottlenecking efforts in Richardton (the Gevo, North Dakota site), Bloom said planning is underway, including prioritizing projects by payback and execution speed. He reiterated that Gevo has previously discussed increasing capacity to roughly 75 million gallons and said the company expects incremental volumes to also increase co-products such as animal feed and carbon dioxide, requiring continued focus on monetizing “commodity, carbon, and incentives.”
Bloom also described potential financial upside from incentives and carbon monetization at the site, including clean fuel production tax credits (which he said could be up to $1 per gallon, depending on carbon intensity), as well as growth in carbon value through multiple pathways. He discussed selling carbon attached to fuels in low-carbon markets, or separated as carbon dioxide removal credits, and referenced a multi-year $26 million deal with a European company called BioRecro to purchase carbon. Bloom added that the company holds significant pore space capacity for sequestration and said Gevo is using about 17% of that pore space today, leaving room to potentially store third-party CO2 and monetize that service.
On financing, Bloom said Gevo’s balance sheet supports ongoing work at the existing site, but ATJ30 will require project-level financing. He reiterated that the company is working with the DOE’s Energy Dominance Finance group and noted that the conditional loan guarantee was extended last year. Bloom said the total installed capital for an ATJ30 plant is expected to be “a little over” $500 million, with total financing costs higher. Gruber added that the DOE process can be complex and said the project is strong irrespective of DOE participation, while noting the likely mix of debt and equity.
Vice President of Strategy Eric Frey addressed investor-focused milestones, stating that Gevo has moved from roughly $20 million in annual revenue historically to a run rate he said should be around $150 million to $200 million per year based on recent quarters. Frey also cited the company’s quarterly adjusted non-GAAP EBITDA of $6.7 million in the last quarter and said investors should watch for that to increase over the next several quarters, toward the company’s stated path to approximately $40 million of EBITDA without additional capital. Frey added that CFO Leke Agiri has said operating cash flow should become effectively neutral to positive in the next couple of quarters as timing differences between tax credit sales and cash receipts normalize.
Executives also referenced ongoing technology development. Bloom said Gevo was awarded an additional patent in its ethanol-to-olefins (ETO) portfolio and claimed the technology could reduce capital costs by up to 35% and operating costs by up to 35%, while noting it remains in pilot and development stages. He also cited work with partners including Axens and LG Chem.
In Q&A, Bloom said the company is exploring marine fuel markets, including potential ethanol opportunities “on the water,” and reiterated interest in isobutanol, including performance marine applications and emerging discussions about isobutanol as a diesel blendstock.
Closing the session, Bloom said he expects results to improve from last year’s “transformational” performance, with continued emphasis on debottlenecking, expanding the carbon business, and advancing financing and development for the first ATJ30 plant as a foundation for broader replication.
Gevo, Inc (NASDAQ: GEVO) is a renewable chemicals and biofuels company that develops and produces low-carbon alternatives to petroleum-based products. The company’s core technology platform converts fermentable sugars into isobutanol, which can be further processed into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), renewable gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. Gevo’s integrated biorefinery model combines fermentation, recovery, and downstream processing to deliver scalable, drop-in replacements for conventional fossil-derived hydrocarbons.
Gevo’s primary products include isobutanol, a four-carbon alcohol used as a building block for various fuels and chemicals, and hydrocarbon fuels that meet ASTM specifications for aviation and road transport.
The article “Gevo CEO Shakeup: Gruber to Executive Chair as Bloom Takes Helm, Eyes Northstar ATJ30 Expansion” was originally published by MarketBeat.
