POET acquires Cloverdale ethanol plant

Thursday, July 1, 2010
The former Altra ethanol plant, dormant for more than a year, could soon be running again since being purchased by ethanol producer POET.

CLOVERDALE -- On Wednesday, POET Biorefining announced it purchased the former Altra Biofuels plant north of Cloverdale.

The company, which is among the largest producers of ethanol in the world, will invest more than $30 million to modify the Cloverdale facility to produce 90 million gallons annually. POET will also produce Dakota Gold dried distillers grains for livestock feed at the site.

POET CEO Jeff Broin said the productive agriculture community in and around Cloverdale, coupled with POET's unique process and technology, will make it a leader in the industry.

"We have been looking at potential acquisitions for some time," Broin said. "This plant, in this community, will be a perfect fit for what we do at POET."

There will be more than 40 new jobs created along with hundreds of secondary jobs; something Lt. Governor Becky Skillman said would be a welcome addition for the area.

"Biofuels continue to be a vibrant industry here in Indiana, and we're glad that POET is making another commitment to Indiana and its workers," Skillman said. "These new jobs and the use of the existing facility will be a tremendous boost for Putnam County."

POET, which employs more than 1,500 people throughout the Midwest, plans to begin hiring production and supervisory staff in the next 90 days. The company anticipates being at full production in the next nine months, after facility upgrades are completed.

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation will transfer existing biofuel production credits to the company based on the company's job-creation plans. The Putnam County Council will consider transferring additional existing property tax abatement from the Altra facility.

"Putnam County is pleased to have POET join our community through its acquisition of the ethanol plant at Cloverdale," said council president Darrel Thomas. "The benefits to our agriculture business community, the local tax base, the South Putnam school district and the creation of good paying jobs are welcome and greatly appreciated."

Find out more about the ethanol plant and its future in upcoming editions of the Banner Graphic.

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  • How long before this plant shuts down too????

    -- Posted by clgruener on Thu, Jul 1, 2010, at 8:46 AM
  • Here we go again! Taxpayer subsidies and tax abatement. There is no end to gouging the taxpayer for this very expensive fuel. Without the subsidies, the ethanol would be more expensive than gasoline and it does not give as good a mileage per gallon than gasoline. This is bad enough, but wait till we get cap and trade.

    -- Posted by not gullible on Thu, Jul 1, 2010, at 10:10 AM
  • Ethanol is less expensive to produce and refine and most cars can run 60-40 on it without an engine modification.

    -- Posted by Jahaya on Thu, Jul 1, 2010, at 12:30 PM
  • We've figured out how to burn our food. When are we going to figure out how to eat our fuels.

    Anyone who says that Ethanol is cheaper to produce than gasoline hasn't looked at the data.

    -- Posted by whatsup on Thu, Jul 1, 2010, at 12:46 PM
  • First off if it brings in jobs quit whining. If we learned it went somewhere else you would complain. Secondly at least if we have a corn spill the birds can clean it up!

    -- Posted by hardtobelieve on Thu, Jul 1, 2010, at 12:54 PM
  • "Moving away from oil dependence is necessary to sustain the world's population"

    How so? You could use up every drop of oil on earth and not affect the worlds population. You just better have something to take oils place as an energy source when it runs out, which, by the way, isn't expected for 3 or 4 hundred more years.

    -- Posted by exhoosier2 on Thu, Jul 1, 2010, at 4:00 PM
  • Im glad someone stepped up to the plate to generate a cleaner burning fuel and generate jobs as poet has.Everyone wants to breathe cleaner air as we all know oil is not clean at all.Im pretty sure that everyone would agree that if there were a spill in your back yard you would want it to be a bio-fuel.I myself like the power of gasoline but with our technology im sure there is a cleaner solution to get what we have all come acustomed to.

    -- Posted by tomroberts on Wed, Dec 22, 2010, at 12:28 PM
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