Center Ethanol Targets Early April Start-Up for Illinois Plant

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Investor-owned Center Ethanol Company LLC (Sauget, Illinois) has marked early April 2008 as the target date to start up the company's new fuel ethanol plant in Sauget. The plant is taking in corn and expects to begin commissioning activities within the next couple of weeks. Construction started on the plant in October 2006, and construction will take 18 months to complete.

The plant will utilize ethanol process technology provided by Delta-T Corporation (Williamsburg, Virginia) and was built through a joint venture partnership between MC Industrial Incorporated (Saint Louis, Missouri) and TE Ibberson Company (Hopkins, Minnesota).

Once online, the plant is expected to produce 54 million gallons per year of fuel ethanol using 19.2 million bushels of locally grown corn. The plant will also produce 172,000 tons per year of distillers dried grains and generate 150,000 tons of carbon dioxide, a byproduct of ethanol production.

The plant is on a 54-acre site in Sauget just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. The site has excellent transportation infrastructure with access to barge, rail and highway that will aid the plant in receiving corn and delivering end products.

Construction costs to build the plant are estimated to be in the $125 million range.

Nine ethanol plants are currently operating in Illinois, producing more than 970 million gallons of ethanol annually. Six more plants are under construction with a total capacity of 434 million gallons annually. Once the last of the plants under construction go online by early 2010, Illinois' capacity for producing fuel ethanol will jump to more than 1.4 billion gallons per year.

Industrial Info's Ethanol Database provides a comprehensive outline of all current development activities in the emerging alternative fuels market. This database covers 147 ethanol plants in operation and 530 plants under development. It also covers 98 operational biodiesel plants and 245 biodiesel plants under development.

View Plant Profile - 1071781

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a marketing information service specializing in industrial process and energy related industries with products and services ranging from industry news, forecasting, plant and project databases, as well as multimedia advertising campaign assistance.