Troubled Gateway Ethanol Plant in Kansas Plans to Restart Early Next Week

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Gateway Ethanol LLC's (Pratt, Kansas) fuel ethanol plant in Pratt, Kansas, could be back in operation as early as next week since shutting down in February. The plant closed because of damage from an ice storm that caused equipment failure and power loss. High corn prices and financial problems also played a part in the closure.

Construction of the 55 million-gallon-per-year plant started in January 2006, and the plant went online October 2007. The company is now saying that it plans to be back in operation as early as Monday or Tuesday of next week.

The $100 million plant was designed and built by Lurgi Incorporated (Memphis, Tennessee) and will require about 21 million bushels of corn each year.

Now that debt-restructuring issues have been resolved, the company is in court over a note default with lender Dougherty Funding (Minneapolis, Minnesota) and Lurgi. Gateway and Lurgi are in arbitration to settle Lurgi's alleged breach of the engineering, procurement and construction agreement to build the plant.

The company has been working for four years to get the plant 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 156 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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