Printed Tueaday, Oct. 19, 2010. Stockton Record.
PACIFIC ETHANOL
Stockton plant to restart
Operations at $100M facility to begin in December
Pacific Ethanol's plant at the Port of Stockton, which ceased operations six months after the $100 million plant started up in September 2008, will again produce ethanol as an ingredient in gasoline beginning in December, officials said Monday. , officials said Monday. has officially started production. The plant converts corn to ethanol, currently they are using locally harvested corn
Craig Sanders/The RecordBy Staff and wire reports
October 19, 2010 12:00 AMSTOCKTON - Pacific Ethanol will restart its Stockton plant in the next 60 days as the Sacramento-based energy company tries to engineer a comeback.
Officials said the Stockton plant, which can produce as much as 60 million gallons of the grain-based fuel additive per year, will begin producing ethanol by December.
"Resuming production at the Stockton facility allows us to meet the growing demand" for ethanol, said Neil Koehler, Pacific Ethanol's president and chief executive officer.
The decision comes just days after the Obama administration announced it was approving a 50 percent increase in the amount of ethanol that can go into gasoline.
On Wednesday, federal officials said ethanol can account for up to 15 percent of the ingredients in a gallon of gasoline, up from 10 percent, for cars built in 2007 or later.
It's been a rough road for Pacific Ethanol. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009 following the 2008 collapse of the ethanol market, ultimately losing all four of its facilities to lenders, including the Stockton plant, which has been closed for a year and a half. Pacific Ethanol was kept on to manage the plants.
But with the ethanol market's recent turnaround, Pacific hopes it can revive its fortunes. Funding in the 2010-11 state budget for an incentive program for ethanol producers should help - the program known by its acronym, CEPIP, provides payments to eligible ethanol producers in the state. Pacific Ethanol's Stockton and Madera plans are eligible, officials said. The company recently announced a financial plan that will allow it to buy back a stake in its production facilities.
The Stockton plant opened in September 2008 but closed just six months later, after ethanol prices collapsed. The company's four ethanol plants, including the Stockton facility, were closed and the company filed for Chapter 11.
The company has additional plans to restart its 40 million-gallon facility in Madera once market conditions improve, officials said.
Pacific Ethanol's stock closed down 1 cent Monday to $1.01.
AI
