US BioEnergy Starts Construction on 5th U.S. Fuel Ethanol Plant

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). U.S. BioEnergy Corporation (NYSE:USBE ) (Brookings, South Dakota) and partner Big River Resources (West Burlington, Iowa) have begun preliminary construction activity on a fifth fuel ethanol plant that will be located in Grinnell, Iowa, furthering its position as the “nation’s largest pure-play ethanol producer.”

Plans call for the creation of a 100 million-gallon per year plant that will process 38 million bushels of corn into the renewable fuel. Dirt work and pre-construction activity are expected to take three to four months to complete and plant construction should be in full swing by the spring of 2007.

Fagen, Incorporated (Granite Falls, Minnesota) has been hired to provide design, engineering, equipment procurement, and construction management for the project. Construction is expected to take about sixteen months to complete and cost around $150 million to build. Start-up and commissioning of the plant is expected to happen around mid-year 2008.

The latest news comes on the heels of an announcement that subsidiary U.S. BioEnergy – Janesville, LLC has started construction of its fourth plant back in January. (See related January 16, 2007 article: US BioEnergy Starts Construction on Ethanol Plant in Minnesota)

With the addition of the Iowa project, the company now has plants under construction in Hankinson, North Dakota (100MM gal/yr); Janesville, Minnesota (100MM gal/yr); Dyersville, Iowa (100MM gal/yr) and Ord, Nebraska (50MM gal/yr). Add that capacity to existing operational plants in Lake Odessa, Michigan (50MM gal/yr), Albert City, Iowa (100MM gal/yr) and Central City, Nebraska (100MM gal/yr) the company will have an overall production capacity in the range of 700 million of annual production capacity online by early 2009.

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Industrial Info's Ethanol Production Database provides a comprehensive outline of all current development activities in the emerging synthetic fuels market. This database covers 134 ethanol plants currently in operation and 348 plants under development. It also covers 32 operational biodiesel plants and 81 biodiesel plants under development.

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