South Dakota's Glacial Lakes Energy Mina Begins Ethanol Production

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Investor-owned Glacial Lakes Energy Mina LLC (Mina, South Dakota), a subsidiary of Glacial Lakes Energy LLC (Watertown, South Dakota), has started grinding corn and producing small batches of ethanol at their new plant in Mina, South Dakota. In early 2006 when the project was in its infancy, the venture was being developed in the town of Aberdeen, South Dakota (about 15 miles east of Mina), in Brown County under the name of Aberdeen Energy LLC. In January 2007, when the construction site shifted to Mina, Glacial Lakes changed the plant's name to Glacial Lakes Energy Mina to help avoid confusion.

Construction started on the estimated $150 million plant in late 2006 and took 18 months to complete, which is typical for a plant of this size. The plant was designed and built by ICM Incorporated (Colwich, Kansas) and Fagen Incorporated (Granite Falls, Minnesota).

The plant has a production capacity of 100 million gallons per year, processing over 35 million bushels of corn annually and producing 320,000 tons of distillers grains per year.

The 1 million-bushel corn-storage facility is currently full and the plant held its first corn grind on June 12. The plan is to run the plant for about seven days, shut it down for process-tweaking and adjustments, then begin full production later this week. Glacial Lakes is also planning to hold an official open house sometime in September to showcase the plant to the public.

With the Mina plant coming online, the U.S. now has the capacity of producing 9 billion gallons of ethanol annually through 157 operational plants. However, due to flooding in the Midwest and corn prices rising to an all-time high, the domestic fuel ethanol industry is not running at full capacity.

Industrial Info's Ethanol Database provides a comprehensive outline of all current development activities in the emerging alternative fuels market. This database covers 157 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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