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POET acquires idled Indiana ethanol plant

The nation’s largest ethanol producer, POET, has acquired the idled ethanol plant in Putnam County, Indiana, just outside Cloverdale.

The 90-million gallon per year plant, which went online in 2007, was previously operated by Altra Biofuels.  POET CEO Jeff Broin says they plan to have the plant up and running by April 1st of 2011.

“First we need to go through the permitting process to reopen the facility,” Broin says. “Then we’ll update the plant with our proprietary fermentation process and a total water recovery process that will decrease the facility’s water use.  We’ll also add advanced pollution control equipment and double the grain storage.”

The Cloverdale plant uses corn to make ethanol, but Broin says it is a prime candidate for POET’s cellulosic technology, which uses corn cobs as feedstock.  “Because it’s not only surrounded by the corn, but it’s also surrounded by the biomass that comes from growing the corn,” he says, “so, short term, it will obviously be a corn facility—later on, we would add additional capacity in the form of cellulosic ethanol that could take this plant up in capacity by another 40- to 50-million gallons.”

The Cloverdale plant will be POET’s fourth in Indiana.  Brownfield asked POET CEO Jeff Broin if the company has a strategy to locate plants closer to the East Coast ethanol market.

“We have a very strict criteria around site selection, and it involves a lot of different things,” Broin explains, “from corn supply to rail locations to natural gas and electric supply—there are many different things that go into the equation—location to the East Coast market certainly plays into that equation.”

The plant will create 40 to 45 direct jobs and hundreds of secondary jobs.  Indiana Lieutenant Governor Becky Skillman calls it “a tremendous boost for Putnam County.”

This is POET’s first acquisition of an ethanol plant since purchasing its first ethanol plant in Scotland, South Dakota in 1987.

AUDIO: Jeff Broin-conference call opening comments (3 min MP3)

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