| Backers of a plan to build a new ethanol plant in North Dakota are
looking for investors.
The Dakota Renewable Fuels committee will hold meetings throughout the
state in January to unveil their business plan and reach investors, said
Duane Dows, chairman of the North Dakota Corn Utilization Council and the
committees chairman.
The steering committee, formed by farmers a year ago, plans to build a
plant that produces at least 30 million gallons of the fuel additive a
year, Dows told a small group of farmers during a meeting Wednesday at the
North Dakota Agriculture Associations annual Northern Ag Expo.
The expo at the Fargodome Tuesday and Wednesday included agri-business
exhibits, guest speakers and crop production workshops.
Organizers hope to raise at least $18 million to finance construction
of a new ethanol plant, Dows said.
The plants owners would use North Dakota-grown corn to make the fuel
additive, he said.
Corn and other grains are used to make ethanol.
An ethanol plant that produces 30 million gallons a year would cost
about $42 million to build, Dows said.
The plant would use at least 11 million bushels of corn a year
roughly 10 percent of the states annual corn crop, said Mike Clemens, a
Wimbledon, N.D., farmer and steering committee member.
Were excited about ethanol in North Dakota because of the market
we will be creating, Clemens said.
The steering committee has hired consultants to help find the best
location for a new ethanol plant and has narrowed potential sites to
three, Dows said. He would not say what sites are being considered.
Were kind of operating with one foot on the gas and the other
foot on the brake, he said. We want to do this as fast as possible,
but we also want to do it right.
The plant would be the third in North Dakota. Two other plants in
Walhalla and Grafton produce about 35 million gallons of ethanol a year,
Clemens said.
National demand for ethanol is expected to grow primarily because
another fuel additive, MTBE, has been found to contaminate groundwater
supplies, he said.
Minnesota is the nations leader in ethanol production. The states
15 plants produce about 312 million gallons a year, Clemens said. |