Not again! A green energy company that got billions from feds is teetering

[Geee]

:

Abengoa, a renewable energy company based in Spain that has received nearly $3 billion in loans and grants from the U.S. Department of Energy, is teetering on the edge of solvency.

 

“The future of the company seems very black,” Carlos Ortega, a trader at Beka Finance Sociedad de Valores SA, told BloombergBusiness. “It has a tremendous amount of debt which no bank wants to refinance and now even its partners are backing out.”

 

On Wednesday, Abengoa officials sent stockholders and financial investors into a low-grade panic when they announced the company is filing for preliminary creditor protection, a step that could lead to the largest bankruptcy case in Spain’s history.

 

The move came after a Spanish investment firm backed out a plan to inject around €350 million ($372.85 million) into Abengoa, which has been criticized for expanding too fast and accumulating too much debt.

 

News quickly spread to financial markets on both sides of the Atlantic, with Abengoa’s bonds due in March plunging to a record low of 12 cents on the euro. In early trading Wednesday, Abengoa’s stock price on the NASDAQ exchange crashed by more than 50 percent.

 

Late Wednesday, Spain’s stock market announced it was removing Abengoa from its blue-chip index.

[clearvision]

Why was the U.S. Invested in this company?

[Geee]

Why was the U.S. Invested in this company?

My thought exactly - our economy hurting - especially at the time this happened, and we invest overseas!!!! Like to know who was behind this company and who they knew. The answers are always in the money. Follow the money and you'll have your answer. The problem with having done exactly that many times is that they cover it up so well sometimes it's not always obvious. Used to be easier, and if you do manage to find out-nobody seems to care anyway.

[Geee]

Solyndra times five: What’s up with the $2.65 billion in federal loans to Abengoa?

 

Ratepayers won’t get stuck with the tab if international renewable energy giant Abengoa goes bankrupt, say officials for the biggest power company in Arizona.

 

Whether U.S. taxpayers will avoid the bill is less clear.

 

Based in Spain, Abengoa SA is teetering on the verge of insolvency after applying for creditor protection last week. The renewable giant got — from the U.S. Department of Energy — loan guarantees of $1.45 billion to build the Solana solar plant in Arizona and $1.2 billion to construct the Mojave Solar Project in California.

 

Abengoa’s potential bankruptcy has panicked investors, caused its stock price to plummet and raised questions about the status of the two loans, which amount to $2.65 billion.

 

“Potentially, we’re looking at a huge hit,” said William Yeatman, senior fellow specializing in environmental policy and energy markets at Competitive Enterprise Institute and critic of the government’s loan program promoting green businesses. “The total amount of these loans is something like five times bigger than what Solyndra got.”

 

Solyndra, a California-based company that made solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, received $535 million in a loan guarantee from the Department of Energy in 2010. The next year Solyndra filed for Chapter 11, with taxpayers getting almost none of the money back.

 

http://watchdog.org/250161/solyndra-loans-abengoa-2/

[Geee]

Abengoa contagion spreads to U.S. biofuel plants, causing layoffs and shutdowns

 

The ripple effects of the financially troubled Spanish-based renewable energy giant Abengoa just slammed into its biofuel plants in the United States.

 

Whether it’s a short-term setback or a signal of problems that run much deeper for the industry remain to be seen as Abengoa fights off the prospect of bankruptcy.

 

According to reports in Spanish media, Abengoa is suspending its cellulosic biofuels plant in Hugoton, Kansas, as well as six other bioenergy plants in the U.S., including a facility in Colwich, Kansas, that produces corn-based ethanol.

 

The company is also reportedly on the verge of shutting down the headquarters of Abengoa Bioenergy in St. Louis.

 

Abengoa Bioenergy employs 462 people in the U.S., making up about 10 percent of the multinational’s global workforce.

 

Watchdog.org left multiple voicemail messages with Abengoa Bioenergy but has not received a response.

 

http://watchdog.org/250277/abengoa-biofuels-industry/

[Geee]

Solar Firm Lobbies for More Subsidies as Parent Company Admits Insolvency

 

A green energy company backed by billions in taxpayer funds is pouring money into its lobbying operation even as its parent company teeters on the edge of bankruptcy, government documents show.

 

Abengoa Solar LLC has spent $70,000 since October lobbying Congress for renewable energy subsidies, disclosure filings reveal. On each of the issues on which it lobbied, the company reported that its foreign parent, Spanish firm Abengoa, would benefit financially.

 

That company recently filed for insolvency protection in Spain, a process that gives it four months to secure financing that would allow it to stave off bankruptcy.

 

According to figures released by the company in those proceedings, its largest creditor, at about $2.35 billion (2.2 billion euros), is the U.S. Treasury. It also owes more than $280 million (260 million euros) to a controversial U.S. export finance agency recently reauthorized by Congress.

 

Abengoa is the company behind two U.S. solar facilities that together received $2.85 billion in stimulus-funded loan guarantees from the Department of Energy. Its extensive U.S. government backing led the group Good Jobs First to label Abengoa one of “Uncle Sam’s favorite corporations.”

 

http://freebeacon.com/issues/solar-firm-lobbies-for-more-subsidies-as-parent-company-admits-insolvency/