VeraSun Holds Groundbreaking Ceremony for Iowa Fuel Ethanol Plant

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). The nation’s second largest ethanol producer and publicly traded company VeraSun Energy Corporation (NYSE:VSE ) (Brookings, South Dakota), held a ceremonial groundbreaking event last Thursday in Hartley, Iowa, marking the construction start on yet another ethanol plant in the company’s growing renewable fuel development portfolio.

The plant will utilize ICM’s (Colwich, Kansas) licensed ethanol process technology, and construction will be performed by Fagen Incorporated (Granite Falls, Minnesota). The facility will have the capability of producing some 110 million gallons per year of ethanol and will process some 42 million bushels of locally grown corn annually. The plant will also produce 350,000 tons per year of distillers dried grains, a by-product of ethanol production.

Construction is expected to take fifteen to sixteen months to complete and plant start-up is expected by the fall of 2008. Construction costs to build the plant are in the $170 million range.

VeraSun currently has two additional 110 million gallon per year plants under construction in Charles City, Iowa and Welcome, Minnesota and future plans to build a plant of the same size in Reynolds, Indiana.

The company is also looking at breaking into the biodiesel market with plans to build a 30 million gallon per year plant near their existing ethanol plant in Aurora, South Dakota.

Once all current announced plants are completed, VeraSun will have the capacity of producing about 590 million gallons of biofuels annually.

Industrial Info's Ethanol Production Database provides a comprehensive outline of all current development activities in the emerging synthetic fuels market. This database covers 123 ethanol plants currently in operation and 290 plants under development. It also covers thirty-two operational biodiesel plants and 75 biodiesel plants under development.

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