Marquis Energy's Illinois Ethanol Plant Scheduled to Begin Operation by the End of March

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Marquis Energy LLC (Hennepin, Illinois) a division of Marquis Grain Incorporated (Hennepin), expects to begin taking in corn by the middle of the month in anticipation of beginning operation at its new fuel ethanol plant by the end of March. Construction on the plant is wrapping up, and equipment testing and plant commissioning is underway, along with the hiring of the 50 employees it will take to run the plant.

As reported by Industrial Info in September 2006, the company began building the estimated $175 million plant at that time under the direction of the team of ICM Incorporated (Colwich, Kansas) and Fagen Incorporated (Granite Falls, Minnesota). The plant was built in the standard 16-month construction window.

The plant will process some 38 million bushels of corn annually to produce 100 million gallons per year of fuel ethanol. The plant will also generate approximately 320,000 tons per year of distillers dried grains.

The plant is situated along the Illinois River in Hennepin about 100 miles west of Chicago in Putnam County. Marquis expects to start taking in corn by the middle of March and begin grinding corn and producing the first batches of ethanol by late March or early April 2008.

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.

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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.