MOSCOW (MRC) -- Valero Energy has purchased a corn ethanol plant in Mount Vernon, Indiana, from Aventine Renewable Energy, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
The plant has a production capacity of 110 million gal/year and uses Delta-T technology, similar to the process already in use at Valero's ethanol plant in Jefferson, Wisconsin.
The Mount Vernon plant is the 11th corn ethanol plant in Valero's system and its second in Indiana. The addition will give Valero more than 1.3 billion gal/year in ethanol production.
The Mount Vernon plant has been shut down for approximately two years, but Valero plans to begin a restart program and resume production within the next several months.
The Mount Vernon plant's logistical advantages include ready access to corn suppliers as well as strong rail, truck and barge transportation, according to Valero officials. The plant is at the Port of Indiana on a location leased from Ports of Indiana, the state port authority. That relationship will continue.
"This purchase diversifies Valero Renewables' portfolio of assets and access to markets, and it will be positive for the Mount Vernon area as well," said Gene Edwards, who has overseen Valero's ethanol plant acquisitions. "We look forward to a strong working relationship with Ports of Indiana, and as the other communities where we have ethanol plants have discovered."
Ports of Indiana CEO Rich Cooper lauded the transaction, noting that it is Valero's first facility located at a major port on the inland waterway system.
"This facility will provide Valero with a tremendous strategic advantage in the production and distribution of ethanol," Cooper said. "This project combines the resources and expertise of a world-class company like Valero with one of the world's richest grain producing regions and this port's multimodal capabilities."
As MRC wrote earlier, Foster Wheeler has signed an evergreen agreement with Valero Energy for the provision of home office engineering and project support services to Valero"s Pembroke refinery and other facilities in the UK.
Valero Energy Corporation is a Fortune 500 international manufacturer and a marketer of transportation fuels, other petrochemical products, and power. It is based in San Antonio, Texas, United States. The company owns and operates 16 refineries throughout the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and the Caribbean with a combined throughput capacity of approximately 3 million barrels (480,000 m3) per day, 10 ethanol plants with a combined production capacity of 1.2 billion US gallons (4,500,000 m3) per year.
MRC