Owensboro Grain Plans Thursday May 18, 2006 Groundbreaking for New Biodiesel Plant in Kentucky

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Reported by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). Family owned and operated Owensboro Grain Company Incorporated (Owensboro, Kentucky) is planning to hold a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday, May 18, 2006, for the construction of a new 50 million gallon per year biodiesel plant, which will be built at the company’s soybean refining plant located in Owensboro. Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher along with company, state, and local representatives plan to be on-hand for the historic silver shovel ceremony.

Plans are to construct a $22 million plant that will convert some of the 75 million gallons per year of soybean oil the company generates annually into biodiesel fuel, utilizing a continuous transesterification process. De Smet Process and Technology Incorporated (Marietta, Georgia) is providing the engineering drawings for the process design and Fagen Engineering LLC (Taylors, South Carolina) will construct the plant.

The plant is scheduled to begin operation by mid-year 2007, and some ten to fifteen new jobs will be created. The plant will also be the first commercial-scale biodiesel plant to be constructed in the state, joining a smaller scale, one million gallon per year, plant operated by Griffin Industries in Butler, Kentucky.

Currently, seventeen large-scale biodiesel plants are operating across the country, along with nine plants presently under construction. An additional 24 plants are in the pre-construction phase, that will more than double the industry’s capacity over the next 12 to 18 months.

Owensboro Grain Company produces edible oils and soy products near the Ohio River in Western Kentucky. Soy products include meal, hull pellets, oil, and lecithin for human consumption and animal feeds. The company's SoyMax, a soybean meal product, was developed alongside specialists at Tyson Foods and two universities. Its products are sold internationally, and the company is a family-owned firm founded in 1906 by the Wright family.

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 17 operational biodiesel plants and 40 biodiesel plants under development.

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