VeraSun Plans Official Groundbreaking Ceremony Today for Minnesota 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), is planning to hold an official groundbreaking ceremony today in Welcome, Minnesota to mark the construction start on yet another ethanol plant in the company's growing portfolio in renewable fuel development.

The ceremony is scheduled to start at 3:00 p.m. today and will be held at the plant site located at 1444 120th Street near Welcome. The public is invited to attend to hear scheduled speakers for the event that include Minnesota State Senator Jule Rosen, Minnesota State Representative Bob Bunther and Roger Moore, Vice President of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association's board of directors. AgriTalk's Mike Adams will be on hand to host the ceremony.

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 39 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.

Actual field construction and site preparation started back in late November of last year and plant start-up is expected by March or April 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 and Hartley, Iowa 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 670 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 32 operational biodiesel plants and 75 biodiesel plants under development.

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