FIXED ASSETS, NET

Fixed assets consist of the following:



	Useful Life (in years)	December 31, 2019			December 31, 2018
Equipment	7-20	$	42,879,308		$	40,404,582
Furniture and fixtures	7	108,896			108,896
Leasehold improvements	15	2,434,690			2,331,071
Office equipment	5	1,213,865			1,190,509
Vehicles	5	7,114,001			6,899,388
Building	20	274,203			274,203
Construction in progress		12,361,034			12,720,188
Land		3,083,551			2,833,551
Total fixed assets		69,469,548			66,762,388
Less accumulated depreciation		(24,708,151		)	(19,874,896		)
Net fixed assets		$	44,761,397		$	46,887,492

Depreciation expense was $5,189,331 and $5,166,467 for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018, respectively.

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.