VeraSun's Indiana Ethanol Plant Back Online after Spooky Shutdown

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--VeraSun Energy Corporation (NYSE:VSE) (Brookings, South Dakota), the nation's second largest ethanol producer, restarted a fuel ethanol plant in Linden, Indiana, on Wednesday morning, October 29, after an unexpected shutdown last week. The company has made no official announcement on why the plant was shut down other than speculation that the spooky ethanol economy was slowing production at the plant.

On Wednesday of last week, the plant stopped accepting corn from the nearby Cargill elevator, and the last cook was completed on Thursday. In August 2007, VeraSun acquired the nameplate 100 million-gallon-per-year plant from ASAlliances Biofuels, along with two other plants in Albion, Nebraska, and Bloomingburg, Ohio.

Since September, the company's stock has plummeted to $0.61 from a 52-week high of $17.75 per share. More signs of trouble surfaced in the month. VeraSun hired Morgan Stanley to "act in an advisory capacity to evaluate strategic alternatives" and suspended a previously announced equity offering and put the company up for sale.

VeraSun has 16 plants operating in eight states. It recently opened new plants in Janesville and Welcome in Minnesota and has the capability of producing more than 1.6 billion gallons per year of fuel ethanol. The company could be a buyout target depending on who the next president is.

Industrial Info's Ethanol Database provides a comprehensive outline of all current development activities in the emerging alternative fuels market. This database covers 177 ethanol plants in operation and 530 plants under development. It also covers 145 operational biodiesel plants and 245 biodiesel plants under development.

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