Lakeview Energy closed a multi-draw, senior secured debt facility with Orion Energy Partners, L.P. to fund process upgrades at its existing 55 million gallon per year biorefinery in Coshocton, Ohio (the “Plant”). The capital investment will provide energy savings to Lakeview and support a long-term offtake agreement with an industry leading producer of hand sanitizer and other hygiene products. Under this strategic arrangement, Lakeview will supply the offtaker with low carbon United States Pharmacopeia (“USP”) grade ethyl alcohol for use in its various product lines.
Based in Chicago, Illinois, Lakeview is a private renewable energy company that owns a variety of operating biorefineries in the Midwest US. Lakeview has been operating ethanol and biofuel plants since 2011 and acquired the Plant in Coshocton in 2013. With the infusion of Orion’s flexible capital, Lakeview will restart the Plant and produce higher quality USP grade ethanol, as well as fuel grade ethanol and associated co-products. The Plant’s process upgrade projects will be completed in early-2022.
“Our partnership with Orion provides us with the ability to improve the efficiency of the Plant and support the supply of low carbon, high purity alcohols to our new strategic offtake partner,” said Jim Galvin, Lakeview’s CEO. “We are excited to collaborate with Orion, an industry leader in sustainable infrastructure, and this partnership marks Orion’s confidence in our team, industry experience, and mission.”
“Lakeview has successfully proven its ability to capitalize on a growing market while reducing risk via product diversification, and we are extremely excited to start our capital partnership with the team,” said Chris Leary, Investment Partner at Orion. “We also recognize that society is still grappling with social and economic challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, and we feel proud to be supporting a business that will bring benefit to the local community in the form of new jobs and positive public health attributes.”
Dorsey & Whitney LLP acted as legal counsel to Lakeview and Greenberg Traurig, LLP acted as legal counsel to Orion.