Sale of Greater Ohio Ethanol Plant Approved

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The troubled investor-owned Greater Ohio Ethanol LLC (Lima, Ohio) (also known as GO Ethanol) has been approved for sale. Earlier this week, the Northern Ohio District Bankruptcy Court approved the sale to the Paladin Capital Group (Washington, D.C.), and the new owner vowed to produce fuel ethanol at the now idled plant.

Paladin is an established, multi-stage private equity firm that invests in growing companies through acquisitions and expansion capital. The company has more than $980 million dollars under management across several distinct funds.

Paladin will pay an initial $5.75 million for the estimated $150 million plant and promised to pay an additional $15 million more in the future. The plant comes at a steal of a price because of design problems that make the facility too expensive to operate.

The plant went into operation in July of 2008 and just five months later, the venture filed for bankruptcy protection. Construction of the plant initially began in early 2006, but a seven-month work stoppage occurred when the company's general contractor Walbridge Aldinger Company (Detroit, Michigan) was pulled off the project because of bonding issues. The company managed to secure new financing, and construction resumed in October of 2006 under the direction of new general contractor Alberici Constructors Incorporated (St. Louis, Missouri). The plant was then on-target for completion by the end of 2007.

The venture also took a risk using Benchmark Design USA Incorporated's (Clearwater, Florida) licensed ethanol process technology.

The plant has a capacity of 54 million gallons per year of fuel ethanol production and requires more than 20 million bushels of corn annually. No timetable has been set as to when the plant will go back into operation.

Industrial Info's Ethanol Database provides a comprehensive outline of all current development activities in the emerging alternative fuels market. This database covers 177 ethanol plants in operation and 530 plants under development. It also covers 145 operational biodiesel plants and 245 biodiesel plants under development.

View Plant Profile - 1062520
View Project Report - 10003351

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