POET's $120M expansion opened, new production to come online in coming weeks

MARION —  The ethanol plant outside Marion is now POET Biorefining's largest.

On Wednesday, POET, one of the largest producers of ethanol in the U.S., inaugurated the new production facilities that will raise the plant's production capacity from 70 million gallons of ethanol to 150 million gallons, more than doubling the amount of ethanol able to be produced in a year.

Ethanol is used as a gasoline additive. Consumers might recognize it from E-10 signs at the gas pump, which represent the percentage of ethanol mixed with gasoline. Almost all gasoline is blended with ethanol today.

The expansion will add around 20 new jobs to the plant, and with the increased capacity, the refinery will be able to buy an extra 26 million bushels of corn per year from local farmers, company executives said.

Company executives have heralded bio-fuels as an answer to the slump in corn and other crop prices in recent years, contending that bio-fuels provide a market for those crops that stabilize demand and prop up commodity prices.

"We've got more than four years of low commodity prices and on top of that, we've seen additional market declines to the international trade issues," said CEO Jeff Broin in a pre-recorded video shown at the opening Wednesday. "Bio-fuels represent the best source of new demand year after year for American farmers and Midwest states."

Local farmers who haul their corn to the refinery turned out to the opening Wednesday.

David Ruth grows corn, soybeans and wheat on his farm in Green Camp and sells all 15,000 bushels of corn to the plant here, he said.

"It's the best price," he said.

There have been times, he said, where he hasn't been able to haul some of his corn to the refinery here, say, when the refinery is full.

With the added production capacity, he said he's hopeful the refinery will be able to take more crop.

President and COO Jeff Lautt said the Marion plant was chosen for the expansion because of the area's access to markets, level of corn supply, business climate and support from local and state officials, many of whom were at the opening on Wednesday.

POET used the opportunity to promote ethanol-friendly policies, including removing a federal regulation that allows E15 gasoline, containing 15 percent ethanol instead of 10 percent, only from September to June.

"We have saturated the U.S. with E-10, and we are on the precipice of breaking through some regulatory hurdles to get to E-15," Lautt said. "We can replace fossil fuels. We can do it right here with domestically produced corn."

Between 2001 and 2010, ethanol production rose dramatically as nearly all gasoline was transitioned to 10 percent ethanol, according to the U.S. Department of Energy's Alternative Fuels Data Center.

As part of the expansion, the company built several new fermentation tanks at the plant. Lautt said the plant will come on line in stages and be running in the next few weeks.

svolpenhei@gannett.com

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