Port of Indiana is Building a 220-Million Gallon Ethanol Plant

To be the state’s largest ethanol plant, it will be built on 116 acres at the Port of Indiana in Mount Vernon on the Ohio River. The $400 million facility is a joint project of Consolidated Grain and Barge Co. (CBG) and Aventine. CBG already has a 10 million bushel elevator system in the Mount Vernon area, 4 million bushels of which are located at the port.

Aventine will run the processing facility and market the ethanol to many leading North American energy companies, including BP Products North America, ConocoPhillips Co., Chevron Texaco Products Co., Shell Oil Products U.S. and Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLC.

In the past 18 months, Indiana has announced 12 new ethanol plants that will produce 1.16 gallons annually and three new biodiesel plants to produce 90 million gallons annually. The CGB and Aventine project will be the largest facility ever built at the state’s three ports. Construction is slated to begin in April 2007, with Phase I production of 110 million gallons to be produced by September 2008 and full production by January 2010.