U.S. Energy Partners Completes Expansion of Fuel Grade Ethanol Plant

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). After only ten months of operating a 25 million gallon per year ethanol plant, U.S. Energy Partners LLC (Russell, Kansas) has completed an expansion increasing capacity to 40 million gallons per year of fuel ethanol. In just 5 months, under the direction of process technology provider Fagen Incorporated (Granite Falls, Minnesota) and general contractor ICM (Colwich, Kansas), U.S. Energy Partners was able to complete the work ahead of schedule and on budget. The expansion project's estimated cost was in the $19 million range.

The expansion will allow the company to accommodate a waste starch stream of feedstock that will be generated from a nearby wheat gluten plant that the company bought and re-started. The main feedstock for the fuel ethanol plant is milo.

U.S. Energy Partners is also currently installing a CO2 recovery system that should be operational within the next 60 days. The CO2 recovery system will capture the CO2 gas from the plant's fermentation system to be sold as a value added byproduct. The facility also utilizes waste heat and steam from a new 15 megawatt cogen that was built by the City of Russell to dry the distiller's grain for cattle feed.

One other plant, a 10 million gallon per year facility by United Grain (Scandia), is under construction in Kansas and four others totaling a projected capacity of 100 million gallons per year are under development.