Another Ethanol Plant On Hold: MinnErgy Blames Low Investor Interest and High Start-Up Costs

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Investor-owned ethanol start-up MinnErgy LLC (Winona, Minnesota) has put its controversial fuel-ethanol plant in Eyota, Minnesota, on hold, citing low investor interest and high start-up costs. MinnErgy's president said in a press release Tuesday that "Uncertain economic times and dramatic fluctuations in commodity prices have dampened the public's investing appetite. By no means does this mean we'll stop working to build an ethanol plant. It's still a very viable project."

The venture had been working on raising $133 million to move forward on construction of the plant. Plans were to construct a 55 million-gallon-per-year fuel-ethanol plant that would have required 53,000 bushels of corn daily to produce the fuel. The design-build team of ICM Incorporated (Colwich, Kansas) and Fagen Incorporated (Granite Falls, Minnesota) were to build the plant.

Since the public did not respond to the investment offering, the next step for the project is to go after private investor offering. If the private offering is not met, the company will not be able to proceed with the project.

Since October of 2008, 59 ethanol projects have been put on hold or canceled. Illinois has been hit the hardest with 13 plants being canceled or put on hold, followed by seven plants in Indiana. This represents over 4.6 billion gallons of potential North American capacity.

Industrial Info's Ethanol Database provides a comprehensive outline of all current development activities in the emerging alternative-fuels market. This database covers 177 ethanol plants in operation and 530 plants under development. It also covers 145 operational biodiesel plants and 245 biodiesel plants under development.

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