Green Earth Fuels Officially Begins Production in Galena Park; Texas Gov. Rick Perry Joins Event to Show Support for Renewable Fuels

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Investor-owned Green Earth Fuels LLC (Galena Park, Texas) held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on November 15, 2007, to officially mark the beginning of fuel production at its new biodiesel plant located within the Galena Park Liquids Terminal owned by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP in Galena Park. The plant has been producing fuel for about a month now, and construction of the facility started in September 2006.

Click to view Governor Rick Perry with Jay Brunson at Green Earth Fuels' Ribbon Cutting Ceremony.

The plant has two process trains capable of producing 43 million gallons per year of biodiesel each, making the plant the largest of its kind in the Gulf Coast region. The plant is currently processing imported palm oil from Malaysia to produce the fuel and has the capability of processing soybean oil as well. For every gallon of oil processed at the plant, about 1.03 gallons of biodiesel is produced.

Through its partnership with Kinder Morgan, Green Earth will utilize Kinder Morgan's existing fuel handling infrastructure to handle feedstock oils and distribute finished product into the fuel system. Kinder Morgan invested more than $25 million to support handling biodiesel and plans another investment of $1.4 million to install vapor recovery systems and other environmental related work at the site. Another $2.5 million is expected to be invested in the terminal across the ship channel in Pasadena to process glycerine and other by-products produced at the biodiesel plant.

The estimated $85 million plant was built in 11 months by contractor Gemma Power Systems (Gastonbury, Connecticut).

Texas Gov. Rick Perry attended the event to show his support for renewable energy development in Texas and said: "Renewable energy is growing in Texas, and the state is now number one in wind energy, number two in solar power and number one in biodiesel production." He also said: "I am pleased to support the maturing biodiesel industry and this state-of-the-art facility, particularly as biofuels play a progressively critical role in protecting America's agricultural economy and national energy security."

Biodiesel plant developers in Texas experienced a recent setback at the end of the summer when the state halted a 20-cent-per-gallon incentive for producers that had been in place since May 2006. The state Legislature failed to renew funding for the program.

Jay Brunson, Vice President for Alternative Fuels at Industrial Info said: "There are currently nine operational biodiesel plants in Texas producing 167 million gallons of the renewable fuel annually. Another seven plants are currently under construction in the state that will add an additional 217 million gallon per year of capacity when completed."

Industrial Info's Ethanol Database provides a comprehensive outline of all current development activities in the emerging alternative fuels market. This database covers 124 ethanol plants in operation and 504 plants under development. It also covers 68 operational biodiesel plants and 205 biodiesel plants under development.

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