Sale Of E3 Biofuels Ethanol Plant Near Closing

The Lincoln Journal Star is reporting that the sale of the E3 Biofuels ethanol plant in Meade, Nebraska is nearing completion.

But Chapter 11 trustee Rob Carringer, a Dallas bankruptcy specialist overseeing the complicated E3 Biofuels case in Wichita's federal bankruptcy court, said he expects the purchase of the company to close within weeks.

"We are hopeful this sale will close by mid-November," Carringer said. "We're working on final closing documents as we speak, and those are circulating among the seller, me, representing the company, the buyer, AltEn, and other parties, the unsecured creditors committee, Saunders County, secured lenders and the bond holders."

"The deal is essentially done," he said. "From what I understand, the buyers intend to restart the plant with the original mission intact, a closed-loop system to make methane to run an alcohol still," Carringer said.

The plant was to produce 24 million gallons of ethanol per year and had some unique features. The plant was to be located with a cattle feedlot. The cattle would be fed the distillers grains which would eliminate the need to dry the distillers grains. The cow manure was to be converted to biogas through anaerobic digestion to provide the process power to run the ethanol plant.

The plant went into production in 2007 but was plagued with boiler problems and never reached full capacity before the owners of the plant ran into financial problems and were forced into bankruptcy.