Columbia Pacific Bio-Refinery Uses Former Ethanol Plant to Move Bakken Oil in Oregon

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The former Cascade Grain fuel ethanol plant at Port Westward, near Clatskanie, Oregon, has been quietly converted into a transloading and bulk liquids storage and shipping facility on the Columbia River.

Cascade Grain filed for bankruptcy back in 2009 and produced little ethanol from the $200 million plant, which had been built in 2008 to produce ethanol and act as a storage terminal. Cascade Grain did not stay in business long enough to implement its plan.

Back in February, Global Partners LP (Waltham, Massachusetts) took over the 44-acre site. The company is now using the storage tanks and transload infrastructure to receive crude oil by rail from the Bakken Shale play in North Dakota.

The terminal transloads ethanol and light sweet crude through the facility to ocean-going barges. The barges, like much of the traffic on the Columbia River, are capable of serving both Asian markets and refineries on the U.S. West Coast.

Ethanol production is not completely dead at the site, as the owners still intend to utilize the asset if ethanol production returns profitability. The ethanol plant has an annual nameplate capacity of 108 million gallons.

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