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Longview Biofuel Project Announced by Staff Capital Press - February 22, 2002

LONGVIEW, WASH. -- Nordic Biofuels LLC, a Washington-based company, announced plans Feb. 20 to build an 84 million gallon-per-year ethanol plant in Longview.

Ethanol is a clean-burning gasoline additive produced from corn that helps reduce vehicle emmissions. In addition to ethanol, officials said the plant will produce more than 250,000 tons of high-quality livestock feed, called distilled grains, and nearly 200,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide for sale to West Coast commercial markets.

Often disbursed as air emissions, Nordic will instead capture the C02 to supply soft drink bottling companies and hospital and medical facilities. The Nordic plant will puchase approximately 30 million bushels of corn per year as raw material.

Nordic Biofuels officials project it will invest $150 million in the new plant and create 75 to 100 jobs. Additional jobs related to transportation and ancillary services will also result, although the job-creation multiplier is undetermined at this point.

"Putting this plant in Longview makes all the sense in the world," said John Baardson, chairman and chief executive officer of Nordic Energy and Nordic Biofuels. "It's close to West Coast markets for ethanol and fits the labor force and transportation infrastructure."

The plant will be located on a reclaimed industrial site at the Port of Longview, with rail, dock and highway access. Nordic is working with the Port of Longview, local, state and federal officials on finalizing the site's rail funding and access.

"This is a company, and an industrial development, that fit ideally with the Port of Longview and Cowlitz County," said Corey Balkan, vice president, Cowlitz Economic Development Council. The project is another private/public partnership example and reflects "the community's 'can-do' attitude toward development," Balkan added.

The ethanol plant is in the design and permitting stage. Groundbreaking is projected for spring, with plant start-up in spring 2003.

Nordic plans a state-of-the-art facility designed to exceed environmental permit standards, said Tom Krueger, Nordic Biofuels president and chief operating officer.

Nordic will be a low-cost ethanol producer and plans to minimize energy costs with co-generation. According to Nordic officials, the plant will be the largest producer in the West Coast market and make Nordic a top-10 ethanol producer in North America. Three other plants are planned in the United States and Canada.

Nordic Energy, a privately held company and the first in the Nordic Group, was started in 1985 as an independent power producer. It has sited and constructed more than a dozen electricity-generating plants throughout the country.

Nordic moved into the biofuels industry in 2001, through Nordic Biofuels LLC, with other projects currently under development in Canada and Ashtabula, Ohio.