FIXED ASSETS, NET

Fixed assets consist of the following:



	Useful Life (in years)	December 31, 2018			December 31, 2017
Equipment	7-20	$	40,404,582		$	38,843,978
Furniture and fixtures	7	108,896			108,896
Leasehold improvements	15	2,331,071			2,323,356
Office equipment	5	1,190,509			1,048,313
Vehicles	5	7,349,486			7,175,147
Building	20	274,203			274,203
Construction in progress		12,720,188			12,612,208
Land		2,833,551			2,851,551
Total fixed assets		67,212,486			65,237,652
Less accumulated depreciation		(19,927,479		)	(16,617,824		)
Net fixed assets		$	47,285,007		$	48,619,828

Depreciation expense was $5,166,467 and $4,817,264 for the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2017, respectively.

Equipment under construction in progress is related to refining equipment at the Marrero and Myrtle Grove facilities in Louisiana.

Asset Retirement Obligations:

The Company has asset retirement obligations with respect to certain of its refinery assets due to various legal obligations to clean and/or dispose of various component parts of each refinery at the time they are retired. However, these component parts can be used for extended and indeterminate periods of time as long as they are properly maintained and/or upgraded. It is the Company’s practice and current intent to maintain its refinery assets and continue making improvements to those assets based on technological advances. As a result, the Company believes that its refinery assets have indeterminate lives for purposes of estimating asset retirement obligations because dates, or ranges of dates, upon which the Company would retire refinery assets cannot reasonably be estimated. When a date or range of dates can reasonably be estimated for the retirement of any component part of a refinery, the Company estimates the cost of performing the retirement activities and records a liability for the fair value of that cost using established present value techniques.