EPA: Marengo plant that exploded sought to turn shingles into 1,800 barrels of oil daily
Officials at a Marengo plant that exploded and burned in December, sending 20 people to the hospital and forcing evacuations of surrounding homes, believed their asphalt shingle recycling business could produce substantial oil profits, according to documents submitted to government regulators.
Responding to questions from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency after the blast and fire, the officials at C6-Zero disclosed that they believed their manufacturing process could pull 2.3 barrels of oil out of every ton of used asphalt shingles they received, according to documents provided to the Des Moines Register on Friday through a Freedom of Information Act request.
According to a contractor's report about the company's operations, C6-Zero estimated that it could process 800 tons of shingles a day. The company also planned to run the factory 24 hours a day year-round.
Based on those numbers, C6-Zero would have produced 1,840 barrels of oil a day and more than 650,000 barrels a year. A standard barrel of oil is 42 gallons.
The price of oil is notoriously volatile. But in 2022, West Texas Intermediate oil traded at an average of $95 per barrel. At that rate, C6-Zero's production estimates would mean the company could earn nearly $65 million in annual revenue.
If, as Howard Brand, the company's founder, disclosed to a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality regulator when he was working on a similar process in San Antonio, he could buy shingles for $55 to $65 a ton, his cost for his main raw material would have been about $17.5 million a year.
A company spokesperson did not respond to an email from the Register on Friday afternoon asking whether C6-Zero's internal revenue and profit projections match what their responses to regulators indicate. However, the projections do help explain how the renewable energy startup could attract some well-established Iowa backers.
Jeffrey Boeyink, a partner at the lobbying firm LS2group and a former chief of staff to Gov. Terry Branstad, served as a company liaison to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Christopher Rants, a former Republican state representative and PolicyWorks lobbyist, also sat in on a meeting with the DNR in May, according to emails obtained through a records request.
Mark Corallo, the company's spokesperson, is a veteran GOP communications operative who worked for President Donald Trump's legal defense during independent counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference of the 2016 election.
After the DNR complained that it was having trouble getting answers about C6-Zero's production process, Boeyink wrote in a May 24 email to the agency that "I understand there is some checkered history here. And I want to assure you that LS2group will guide (C6-Zero) to honor and abide by the rules and regulations in this state."
C6-Zero: 160,000 gallons of oil on site at time of the explosion
In their answers to the EPA released Friday, the C6-Zero officials said they had been testing the machinery in their plant from the beginning of November until Dec. 8, when the explosion occurred.
The company ran piles of shingles through a series of vats filled with a mix of diesel fuel and a proprietary, petroleum-based solvent. The mixture was supposed to dissolve the shingles into sand, fiberglass and oil. The company planned to sell the the three components.
According to the company's response to the EPA, C6-Zero ran its tests for a total of about 30 hours prior to the blast, processing 1,700 tons of shingles into 160,000 gallons of oil.
More:Iowa DNR receives C6-Zero's court-mandated chemicals list after 'technical difficulties'
About 60,000 of those gallons were in a vat at the time of the explosion, "which was likely all burned and was lost in the fire," a company representative wrote in the response. The other 100,000 gallons were still at the factory as of late January, according to C6-Zero.
The company estimated that the blast caused about $2 million of damage at the factory, as well as environmental cleanup costs "to exceed approximately $600,000."
October fire caused by welding
The State Fire Marshal's Office also has investigated the explosion and fire. It declined to release detailed documents from the probe. But Marengo Police Chief Ben Gray, who was briefed on the findings, said Thursday that the chemical mix the company was using has a low flash point and may have ignited, causing the Dec. 8 explosion, when food-grade conveyer belts the company was using to move the shingles between vats ― instead of industrial- grade belts designed for heavier materials ― got excessively hot.
Company spokesperson Mark Corallo disputed Gray's account, saying the flash point of the chemicals was "higher and above industry average."
A prior fire had broken out in the plant about six weeks before the December explosion. In the newly released EPA documents, a C6-Zero official wrote that the fire occurred when an employee was welding one of the trommels, a cylindrical screen, that the company uses in the process. The welding ignited residue on the walls of the trommel, according to the company.
"(The) trommel was not properly swabbed and cleaned per company protocol," a C-6 zero official wrote.
C6-Zero had plan to monitor for asbestos
Another potential challenge for C6-Zero reflected in the EPA documents was shingles containing asbestos. Roofing manufacturers used to make shingles with the fire-proof material that has since been linked to the mesothelioma and other cancers.
According to their response to the EPA, C6-Zero officials planned to avoid asbestos by only taking shingles produced after 1980, when they said manufacturers stopped using the product. C6-Zero said it also would ask suppliers to attest that their products didn't include asbestos, to the best of their knowledge.
In addition, it said it planned to conduct an audit of the suppliers' source of shingles every three months.
"If there is ever any question on the origin (of the shingles), C6-Zero has the option to sample the source material to verify and test for asbestos," the company wrote in its response.
More:After 2 months, cleanup from C6-Zero explosion, fire to start in Marengo
In addition to Iowa and Texas, Brand also had operated in Colorado, and environmental regulators there said they were concerned that Brand's company would spread asbestos in 2019, when he stockpiled shingles that he planned to recycle into oil.
According to an affidavit in from Wolfgang Kray, the materials management unit leader at Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment, that the Register obtained, even shipments of newer shingles could contain asbestos. Roofers sometimes place new shingles on top of old ones, and a batch of used shingles could be mixed.
An Iowa Department of Natural Resources spokesperson did not return an email Friday afternoon asking whether C6-Zero's asbestos prevention methods were appropriate.
Tyler Jett covers jobs and the economy for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at tjett@registermedia.com, 515-284-8215, or on Twitter at @LetsJett.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: C6-Zero production target before blast: 1,800 barrels of oil a day
