Ethanol plant moving along as scheduled

LIMA - Although Greater Ohio Ethanol has produced 300,000 to 400,000 gallons of ethanol during the past few weeks and things are still moving along as planned, company officials said Thursday evening they still have some fine-tuning before the plant is fully operational and producing product for its customers.

Gregory Kruger, president and chief executive officer of GO Ethanol, said the plant, located at 2485 Houx Parkway, will still begin full operations ahead of the schedule they set for themselves.

Because ethanol must be 198.4 proof, or 99.2 percent pure alcohol, to meet customer standards, the company ceased operations to raise its product's purity a few points.

"We are still in startup mode," said Dave Cahill, plant manager. "We had a problem distilling that needed a mechanical fixing."

Cahill said the necessary changes should be made in the next few days, which is ahead of schedule.

"With a plant this large, it can take days to fix," he said. "However, we're very confident this will allow us to make a finished product to our customers' specifications. ... We're a little bit off right now. We can achieve 200 proof but only for short periods of time. This improvement will allow us to do so consistently."

In the startup plan, Kruger said, they had a best-case scenario in which to start production.

"We are past that best-case scenario," he said. "Our startup plan is for 60 days. We are about 30 days into startup. We have an additional 30 days. This schedule we're on is our own schedule; it's a very aggressive schedule. "

Cahill said plans call for the plant to be producing finished product for customers, mainly petroleum companies looking to raise the octane in their gasoline by mixing it with ethanol, by June 1.

"We think we'll still be finishing a bit early," he said. "There are always unknown elements when you startup a plant this size. However, nothing has surfaced that would lead us to believe we're not going to hit that due date, that target."

At its designed capacity, the plant will produce 54 million gallons of ethanol per year, Cahill said, which equates to 155,000 gallons per day.

Construction on the plant began Nov. 21, 2006, and cost more than $100 million. The work created 325 temporary construction jobs. Now that the plant's construction is finished, Kruger said, it has created 43 permanent full-time jobs. Cahill said the workers they have hired for those jobs make the plant a huge success.

"The reason we're achieving success here, the reason our startup has been successful, is because of our plant work force," Cahill said. "We have 43 employees who are local people from the area. They are all doing an amazing job of starting up this plant. ... They are the men and women making it happen, making this huge plant operate."

Both Cahill and Kruger said the company will grow from this plant and they have plans for additional locations. Such locations, they said, are still in the development stages.