INVESTMENT IN UNCONSOLIDATED SUBSIDIARIES

The Company announced on January 21, 2011 that a wholly-owned subsidiary of Darling entered into a limited liability company agreement with Valero to form the DGD Joint Venture. The DGD Joint Venture is owned 50% / 50% with Valero and was formed to design, engineer, construct and operate a renewable diesel plant (the “DGD Facility”), which is capable of processing approximately 12,000 barrels per day of input feedstock to produce renewable diesel fuel and certain other co-products, and is located adjacent to Valero's refinery in Norco, Louisiana. The DGD Joint Venture reached mechanical completion and began the production of renewable diesel in late June 2013.

On May 31, 2011, the DGD Joint Venture and Diamond Green Diesel LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the DGD Joint Venture (“Opco”), entered into (i) a facility agreement (the “Facility Agreement”) with Diamond Alternative Energy, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Valero (the “Lender”), and (ii) a loan agreement (the “Loan Agreement”) with the Lender, which will provide the DGD Joint Venture with a 14 year multiple advance term loan facility of approximately $221.3 million (the "JV Loan") to support the design, engineering and construction of the DGD Facility, which is now in production. The Facility Agreement and the Loan Agreement prohibit the Lender from assigning all or any portion of the Facility Agreement or the Loan Agreement to unaffiliated third parties. Opco has also pledged substantially all of its assets to the Lender, and the DGD Joint Venture has pledged all of Opco's equity interests to the Lender, until the JV Loan has been paid in full and the JV Loan has terminated in accordance with its terms.

In addition to the DGD Joint Venture, the Company has investments in other unconsolidated subsidiaries that were acquired in the VION Acquisition that are insignificant to the Company. Selected financial information for the Company's DGD Joint Venture is as follows:



(in thousands)	December 31, 2017		December 31, 2016
Assets:
Total current assets	$	202,778	$	268,734
Property, plant and equipment, net	435,328		354,871
Other assets	4,655		12,164
Total assets	$	642,761	$	635,769
Liabilities and members' equity:
Total current portion of long term debt	$	17,023	$	17,023
Total other current liabilities	40,705		23,200
Total long term debt	36,730		53,753
Total other long term liabilities	450		418
Total members' equity	547,853		541,375
Total liabilities and member's equity	$	642,761	$	635,769



	Year Ended December 31,
(in thousands)	2017			2016			2015
Revenues:
Operating revenues	$	633,908		$	527,670		$	475,934
Expenses:
Total costs and expenses less depreciation, amortization and accretion expense	547,512			353,222			298,946
Depreciation, amortization and accretion expense	28,955			27,821			19,714
Operating income	57,441			146,627			157,274
Other income	1,343			551			120
Interest and debt expense, net	(2,306		)	(7,354		)	(13,604		)
Net income	$	56,478		$	139,824		$	143,790

As of December 30, 2017, under the equity method of accounting, the Company has an investment in the DGD Joint Venture of approximately $273.9 million on the consolidated balance sheet and has recorded approximately $28.2 million, $69.9 million and $71.9 million in equity net income in the unconsolidated subsidiary for the years ended December 30, 2017, December 31, 2016 and January 2, 2016, respectively. Biodiesel blenders registered with the Internal Revenue Service were eligible for a tax incentive in the amount of $1.00 per gallon of renewable diesel blended with petroleum diesel to produce a mixture containing 0.1% diesel fuel for fiscal years ended December 31, 2016 and December 31, 2015. These biodiesel blenders tax credits expired on December 31, 2016, as a result the DGD Joint Venture fiscal 2017 results do not include any blenders tax credits. As a blender, the DGD Joint Venture has recorded approximately $160.6 million and $156.6 million in blender credits, for its fiscal years ended December 31, 2016 and December 31, 2015, respectively. These blenders credits were recorded by the DGD Joint Venture as a reduction of total costs and expenses in the above table. In fiscal 2015, the DGD Joint Venture booked all blenders tax credits in the fourth quarter. In addition, for each of the years ended December 30, 2017, December 31, 2016 and January 2, 2016, the Company received $25.0 million in dividend distributions from the DGD Joint Venture.

In February 2018, the blender tax credits for calendar year 2017 were retroactively reinstated by the U.S. Congress. The DGD Joint Venture is expected to receive approximately $160.4 million in fiscal 2018 for these reinstated blenders tax credits.