Rentech may bring bigger, better things

By Kevin Cooper (Contact) | The Natchez Democrat

Published Sunday, August 10, 2008

What if Rentech’s $4 billion synthetic fuels plant winds up being small potatoes for Adams County?

Rentech stockholders may electronically beat me for daring to say something that can be viewed as critical of the investment they hope will make them rich.

Rentech is one of those fledgling technology companies whose stock price jumps around as the winds of speculation and rumor blow.

But last week some big news had Rentech’s investors smiling broadly as the stock price climbed.

Rentech, the technology company seeking to bring a synthetic fuel plant to Adams County, had big news.

After a couple of years of talking, Rentech announced it was making fuel using its patented process at a demonstration plant in Colorado.

Imagine the plant as a model of what the Natchez plant could be. The point of the demonstration plant is in its name — to demonstrate the process is sound and to provide sample quantities of the fuel for testing.

The quantities involved will be fractional compared to the 25,000 barrels a day the company hopes to produce if a Natchez plant is built.

Production estimates for the Natchez plant are staggering. Assuming 25,000 barrels a day and no downtime, the plant would produce more than nine million barrels a year.

At $100 a barrel, that’s more than $900 million worth of fuel each year.

Considering those numbers, saying Rentech might be small potatoes to the area almost seems blasphemy.

Now don’t get me wrong, Rentech is a proverbial “big dog.” It is by far and away the closest prospect Adams County has had to an auto plant or other mega plant — ever.

But while many locals are basking in the glory that we all think and hope Rentech will bring, we need to be looking ahead.

Rentech is a great prospect and the timing for its synthetic fuels seems to be hitting the market’s sweet spot. America is quickly building a critical mass of support for reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

Rentech’s fuel could be a key piece of helping America get there.

But what could be bigger for Natchez, Adams County, Vidalia, Ferriday and Concordia Parish?

Exposure and momentum.

Rentech is poised to bring lots of attention and eyeballs to the area as they ramp up their public relations machine and seek to lobby for support and investors.

And with those eyeballs comes great opportunity to seize the “next” Rentech or tomorrow’s Nissan plant.

If Rentech’s technologies are as good as they say, their future will be bright and lucrative. But right now, they share much of the same problems that Natchez and the area faces — getting the message out to the masses.

Both need all the exposure they can get and one feeds off the other.

The momentum of what looks to be Rentech’s impending success could be like the tiny snowball that is formed and is carefully pushed around the yard, building and building until it’s scale has grown exponentially.

Who knows, our area could become the next manufacturing site for a state of the art solar panel or the first city in the South to convert all public vehicles to run on natural gas.

Those kinds of headlines would continue to attract attention and allow our area to keep pulling bigger and bigger potatoes out of the ground.

Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com