Countrymark Cooperative Holding Corp. has announced it intends to return $52 million in cash patronage and equity redemptions to its owners in June of 2026, as approved by the Board of Directors. This distribution will return profits for cooperative member business from 2025 purchases in gasoline, diesel, lubricants, and equipment.
CountryMark’s owners are 14 member cooperatives based in Indiana and Ohio, who serve customers in Indiana and the surrounding states.
“We are pleased to have the ability to return profits to our owners,” said Matt Smorch, President & CEO of CountryMark. “CountryMark serves our owners by supplying the fuels and lubricants they need, while operating our assets in a safe, reliable and compliant manner to enable future success.”
The company saw many challenges in 2025 that limited profitability. CountryMark’s refinery undertook a major scheduled maintenance turnaround in the summer, with many process units idled or at minimum rates for over 40 days. Additionally, CountryMark invested $100M to expand diesel production capabilities and improve diesel fuel quality, which added the ability for CountryMark to co-process soybean oil to produce renewable diesel. In the fall, further downtime was planned for maintenance and improvements.
“The culmination of the investments made for the future and a weaker margin environment in 2025 actually reduced our income to a break-even in 2025,” said Smorch. “However, CountryMark was awarded retroactive Small Refinery Exemptions, as the EPA addressed outstanding petitions for the industry. Recouping some of our compliance cost from 2023 and 2024 was the sole driver of our ability to distribute earnings this year.”
In August of 2025, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it was acting on the backlog of 175 Small Refinery Exemptions (SRE) from 38 small refineries for 2016-2024 compliance years. “In consultation with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), EPA reviewed and considered information submitted by each petitioning small refinery. EPA then evaluated each SRE petition consistent with the Clean Air Act and case law,” according to a press release issued by the EPA Press Office.
CountryMark continues to support more clarity on the RFS program for small refiners. Currently H.R. 1346 is being considered by the House, which CountryMark strongly supports. The amendments in H.R. 1346 allow year-round E-15 sales, remove current restrictions and is positive for the farm community. Additionally, this bill removes the uncertainty of the RFS and future compliance cost for many small refining companies like CountryMark.
“CountryMark has a long history of providing biodiesel and ethanol-blended fuels to the market,” said Smorch. “Nearly all gasoline we supply contains ethanol, and biodiesel blends are available at all CountryMark terminals. Even so, we continue to incur substantial annual RFS compliance costs.”
CountryMark is headquartered in Indianapolis, operates an oil refinery in Mt. Vernon, IN, along with crude and refined product pipelines and terminals throughout Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky. CountryMark products include PLUS gasoline, Advantage Lubricants, and it’s well known flagship diesel product Premium Dieselex-4 with ISO Technology. For more information, visit countrymark.com.