Manure-Fired Ethanol Plant Begins Construction in Texas Panhandle

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Reported by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). Panda Ethanol, Incorporated (Hereford, Texas) and privately held parent company, The Panda Group (Dallas, Texas), will utilize both ends of the cow once their new 100 million-gallon per year fuel ethanol plant goes online in the Texas Panhandle producing both hi-protein feed additives and utilizing cow manure to fire boilers for process steam. Ground has been broken and contractors are mobilizing on the site in Sherman County, Texas to proceed with construction on a new $120 million ethanol plant.

The plant will process 40 million bushels of corn and milo annually into the renewable fuel and will be the largest and one of the most fuel-efficient biomass-fueled plants in the United States. The company recently completed debt and equity financing for the project and construction is now moving forward under the direction of design-build firm LurgiPSI (Memphis, Tennessee).

Preliminary site and dirt work is complete and the foundations for the tankage are expected to start going in this week. Plans are to gasify one billion pounds of cow manure annually to run the plant's boilers. Cow manure is readily available due to the large population of cattle in the area. The 1,200-acre site is located about three miles northwest of Stratford, Texas and construction is expected to take about eighteen months to complete. The plant should be producing ethanol by March of 2008.

Panda is headquartered in Dallas, Texas and the company is currently developing fuel ethanol refineries and biomass facilities across the U.S. and has built over 9,000 megawatts of electricity generation capacity at a cost of $5 billion. The company was also named one of the most eco-friendly companies in America.

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Industrial Info's Ethanol Production Database provides a comprehensive outline of all current development activities in the emerging synthetic fuels market. This database covers 123 ethanol plants currently in operation and 234 plants under development. It also covers fifteen operational biodiesel plants and 41 biodiesel plants under development.

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