After two years of construction, the new biodiesel facility adjacent to Bunge Milling in downtown Danville goes operational today and should start producing the first batch of biodiesel next month.
About 75 people, including local and state officials, facility owners, investors, managers and employees, gathered Wednesday at the new plant at 300 North Anderson St. for a ribbon-cutting ceremony and tours of the facility, which is still partially under construction.
Originally, construction started under an ownership group that included Bunge, but that group sold out in May to Blackhawk Biofuels LLC, a group of more than 500 investors, including farmers, who had originally planned to build a biodiesel facility in Freeport.
When their Freeport plans fell through, the group bought the Danville facility and continued construction of the 45 million-gallon-a-year plant, which will be one of a handful of plants in the nation that can produce biodiesel from animal fats and vegetable oils, including soybean oil. That ability helps ensure the plant's profitability, according to officials with the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, which provided $4.8 million in grants to help with construction. The state also provided $19.8 million in support to leverage the $75 million investment in the facility.
(Source: Champaign News Gazette)
