Green Plains reports Q4 EPS (66c), consensus (25c)

Reports Q4 revenue $914.04M, consensus $894.42M. "Execution on our transformation plan hit an important milestone in recent weeks with the completion of our fifth MSC system," said Todd Becker, president and CEO. "These deployments of MSC are an important step toward what we believe will be significant earnings contributions in future quarters from this technology. During the fourth quarter, we continued to experience a challenging ethanol margin environment that was impacted significantly late in the quarter by both rail delays and weather-related shutdowns, coupled with continued seasonally high corn basis. Utilization remained strong at 93% during the quarter and despite the challenging macro operating environment, we achieved a positive consolidated crush margin of $0.03 per gallon. We have begun to see the positive impact from Ultra-High Protein production and expanded oil yields, as they were strong contributors in a weak ethanol margin environment."