New Product for Ethanol Plant

The Blue Flint plant is in the process of producing another commodity to sell - oil for the bio-diesel market The oil extracting equipment sits in the main building at the plant site - and is the first of its kind in the state It separates free non-bound oil from corn that has had its starch extracted for ethanol That oil is then sold into the biodiesel production market General Manager Jeff Zueger says there is about half-pound of oil in a bushel of corn Jeff Zueger We see it as a postive we are able to move oil into a higher value markets produce another renewable fuel When you remove corn oil from the process a gallon of corn oil estentially converts to a gallon of biodiesel So we are able to get about another 5 percent out of this plant as opposed to just producing ethanol and distillers grain Now we are producing a product that ultimately ends up as biodiesel Zueger says the plant should produce about one-and-a-half million gallons of bio-diesel each year And that would pay for the two million dollar project within a year