Biodiesel plant developers buy property
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
By Deborah Gertz Husar
Herald-Whig
Staff Writer
Developers of a
planned biodiesel plant in the
"There's
plenty of room for a lot of different players, but we feel we're a little bit
unique," said Jeff Ewing, president and owner of Ewing Land Development
Services. "We have the resources to move quickly. Everything is in place
for the start of construction on May 1."
At a Tuesday
news conference, Ewing announced the purchase of 172 acres known as the Neuman Property on
Phase one of the
master plan for the site calls for a 30 million-gallon, $50 million biodiesel plant that will create between 30 and 40 jobs.
Construction is expected to take 12 months.
"The
funding is pretty much in place. The seedstock is in
place. The land has been purchased. The equipment is on order. The contract
with the local contractor is under negotiation. We anticipate signing that in
the next 30 days,"
An expansion
project to double the plant's size is scheduled to take place in two to five
years, and
The proposed
plant is the company's first venture into biodiesel,
traditionally made from soybean oil.
Pella,
Iowa-based Ewing Land Development Services has focused on senior housing and
commercial projects in the past.
Available
transportation and raw product, development incentives in the South Quincy
Bottoms and a port under development by the Mid-America Intermodal
Port District drew Ewing to consider
"A new port
adjacent to our facility is another dimension to product coming into our
facility or especially going out,"
"We think
we've got the best site in the nation. We come from a fourth generation farm
background and still own a large agricultural operation in
Contact Staff
Writer Deborah Gertz Husar
at dhusar@whig.com or (217) 221-3379