Refinery Ready to Build at Port
By Joe Goldeen, The Record, Stockton, Calif.
Mar. 14–STOCKTON — Pacific Ethanol Inc. said Tuesday it will break ground on its $92 million biorefinery at the Port of Stockton in less than 30 days.
“Weather is the only thing that could hold us up,” company spokesman Tom Koehler said.
The company, which recently moved its headquarters to Sacramento from Fresno, is the largest West Coast-based marketer and producer of ethanol. The Stockton plant is expected to start producing up to 50 million gallons per year of ethanol from Midwest-grown corn in late spring or summer 2008.
Stockton is the fifth and final plant in the company’s West Coast plans to develop. Its first ethanol refinery went online in Madera in November. Its second is under construction in Boardman, Ore., as is its third plant in Burley, Idaho. Its fourth plant was announced last week near Calipatria in Imperial County.
“The Stockton plant will be our third in the state of California. With demand at nearly 1 billion gallons last year, California is the largest single market for ethanol in the U.S.,” CEO Neil Koehler said.
“This plant’s strategic access to water, rail and road transport should give us affordable access to most markets in California and beyond. The Stockton plant remains true to our destination model, with its location in the San Joaquin Valley of California and proximity to its population of over 1 million head of dairy cattle,” he said.
A byproduct of the refining process is distiller’s wet grain that can be fed to dairy cows. The Stockton plant is expected to produce 25 tons per day, which would be shipped in 48 truckloads to nearby farms, according to the company.
The plant would receive corn shipments by rail from the Midwest; three to four 100-unit trains each month. Twenty tanker trucks would leave the plant every 24 hours, seven days per week, bound for oil refineries where the ethanol will be mixed into gasoline.
In January, the Stockton Port Commission voted unanimously to grant Pacific Ethanol a 15-year lease with seven, five-year options, in exchange for $610,000 annually in rent and facility fees. It also certified the refinery’s environmental impact report.
The Stockton plant is expected to employ 37 workers once it’s up and running.
Port Director Richard Aschieris said Pacific Ethanol is a good fit with the port’s goal of being a leader in environmental stewardship and providing family-wage jobs.
“We look for opportunities to provide facilities to businesses that will improve air quality in the region,” Aschieris said.
More than 2,000 people work at the port, which specializes in shipping and receiving bulk products unsuitable for transit in standard shipping containers. Port officials recently said the facility generates $170 million in local economic activity each year, and that number is expected to grow.
Just last month, Chicago-based USG Corp. announced it will construct a $220 million wallboard plant at the port and employ 170 workers by 2010.
Contact reporter Joe Goldeen at (209) 546-8278 or jgoldeen@recordnet.com. Visit his blog.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Record, Stockton, Calif.
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