Thursday September 27, 2007
Magic Valley Idaho Plant Up and Running
Sacramento, CA, April 29, 2008—Pacific Ethanol, Inc. (NASDAQ GM: PEIX), the largest West Coast-based marketer and producer of ethanol, today announced start-up is complete at its Magic Valley production facility in Burley, Idaho.
Neil Koehler, CEO and President of Pacific Ethanol, observed “This site expands our production footprint to new markets in the Western United States. We’ve succeeded in the plant’s start up and are now able to produce enough ethanol to meet the renewable fuel needs of the entire state of Idaho, assuming a ten percent ethanol blend. We look forward to the opening ceremony with Governor Otter, who also joined us last year in Burley for the plant’s groundbreaking.”
The 60 million gallon per year Burley facility is located on 177 acres, with access to the Union Pacific Railroad, Eastern Idaho Railroad, and Interstate 84. Burley is in the Magic Valley region of Idaho, where a resident population of over 300,000 dairy cattle and 100,000 feedlot cattle provide a ready local market for a key co-product of ethanol, wet distiller’s grain (WDG), a high protein feed source. The plant will process 21 million bushels of corn per year, producing both ethanol and 500,000 tons of WDG annually. According to the Idaho Department of Commerce, this project has created $7.2 million in additional household income in Cassia County.