Gevo Pulls Out of DOE Loan Process, Pushes ATJ FID to End of 2026

Q1 revenue of $42.9M and $8.5M of adjusted EBITDA mark Gevo's first profitable quarter on EBITDA, but the headline shift is the withdrawal from DOE loan financing and a pivot to private capital for Project North Star at the Gevo North Dakota site.

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SAFpath News Desk

May 11, 2026

Image Source: SAF Path

Summary: Gevo posted Q1 2026 revenue of $42.9 million and adjusted EBITDA of $8.5 million — its first EBITDA-positive quarter — and confirmed it has withdrawn from the DOE loan guarantee process for Project North Star, targeting FID by end of 2026 with private capital. The company says it has secured take-or-pay offtake covering roughly 50% of capacity at fixed or floor pricing.

Gevo reported Q1 2026 revenue of $42.9 million and non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA of $8.5 million on May 7 — its strongest adjusted EBITDA print on record — and confirmed the company has withdrawn from the U.S. Department of Energy loan guarantee process for Project North Star and is now pursuing private capital with FID targeted by end of 2026.

The DOE withdrawal is the meaningful operational call here. Project North Star — Gevo’s 30-million-gallon-per-year ATJ-30 plant at the Richardton, ND site, co-located with Gevo’s existing ethanol facility — was originally structured around a DOE Loan Programs Office conditional commitment. Stepping back from federal financing in favor of “multiple non-binding indications of interest” from private capital is a faster path under the current administration but changes the FID risk profile.

“We continue to deliver solid quarterly results while strengthening and expanding our low-carbon ethanol and carbon business.” — Paul Bloom, CEO, Gevo

Project North Star has completed FEL-2 and is expected to complete FEL-3 in Q2 2026. Gevo has secured take-or-pay offtake covering approximately 50% of available capacity with fixed or floor pricing — the structural derisking that private project financiers want to see before they will commit. Q1 net loss came in at $21.7 million ($0.09 per share); cash position closed the quarter at $78.9 million, down from $81.2 million at year-end.

Alongside North Star, Gevo announced a preliminary agreement with Ara Energy for co-investment in a GND expansion that would approximately double existing carbon-capture and ethanol production, with startup targeted for 2028. The GND debottlenecking effort is on track to lift capacity to 75 million gallons of low-carbon ethanol annually starting in 2027, with Q1 turnaround equipment tie-ins already complete. RNG production reached 92 thousand MMBtu in Q1.

Adjusted EBITDA carbon-intensity accounting is now run against the May 2025 45Z CF GREET model, with Q1 carbon abatement totaling 140 thousand metric tons of CO2e, including 46 thousand metric tons from CCS. CFO Leke Agiri laid out an internal “EBITDA challenge” targeting approximately $30 million in FY2026 adjusted EBITDA — up from $17 million in 2025 — and a $40 million annualized run-rate by year-end.

The forward look: Gevo’s pivot away from the DOE puts North Star in a tighter window. The company’s ability to close FID by end of 2026 — on take-or-pay backed by ethanol-to-jet economics under a 45Z framework that is still in proposed-regulation form pending the May 27-29 Treasury proposed-rule hearing — is the test that determines whether Project North Star joins LanzaJet Freedom Pines as one of the few funded large-scale ATJ projects globally.

Source: Gevo / GlobeNewswire

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