2017 is a long wait. Just the grading on the job site is done.
Too many problems:
BlueFire Renewables Inc. (BFRE) may receive as much as $270 million from China’s Export Import Bank to finish building a cellulosic-ethanol plant in Mississippi, its chief executive officer said.
The debt financing is expected to close in the first half of next year, CEO Arnold Klann said today in a telephone interview from headquarters in Irvine, California. After that, construction on the facility would resume as could the rest of funding from the Department of Energy, he said.
BlueFire received about $10 million of an $88 million grant awarded in 2009 before the department withheld the remainder because of the company’s “inability to comply with certain deadlines,” according to a Dec. 27. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
“The main reason the grant was pulled was because last year DOE decided they needed a tight schedule on financing -- they wanted a much quicker closing than what was anticipated by the Chinese,” Klann said. “In terms of getting the grant reinstated, we’re in the process of doing that right now.”
A China Huadian Corp. unit agreed in 2011 to buy an undisclosed stake in the $390 million Fulton, Mississippi, project, which will be built by China Three Gorges Corp. The facility is expected to produce 19 million gallons (72 million liters) a year from wood and plant waste as early as the first half of 2017. Site work including grading is finished.
Tenaska Biofuels LLC agreed in 2010 to buy output from the Fulton plant.
After BlueFire begins production at the plant “we’ll take that technology back to China,” Klann said, referring to the company’s biofuels knowledge. “We’ve done development in China, looking at feedstock sources and other opportunities, and we’ve identified about four sites that would be ideal for deploying a first plant.”
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