Proposed Colorado plant signs offtake agreement

Posted August 19, 2009

Rocky Mountain Sustainable Enterprises LLC has signed an offtake agreement with Gray Oil Company Inc. for its 4.5 MMgy biodiesel plant under development at Fort Morgan, Colo. The $5 million plant scheduled to break ground this fall will supply up to 4.5 million gallons annually to the regional fuel distributor.

"We are excited to be working with Gray Oil, a premier fuel distributor in the Rocky Mountain region, and market leader in the adoption and promotion of biofuels," said RMSE CEO Aaron Perry. "This agreement helps us close the loop on truly sustainable biodiesel supplies that are regionally sourced, produced and used, while delivering highest value to our restaurant and commercial facility customers." Perry added that local permits are in place and the company is close to completing financing arrangements.

Launched in 2005 at Boulder, Colo., Rocky Mountain Sustainable Enterprises has developed a regional commercial cooking oil recycling service with over 1,500 customers under the trademarked name "recycOil" and annually conducts a Thanksgiving turkey oil recycling campaign to raise consumer awareness. The company has operated a waste oil processing center for four years.

After a three-year due diligence technology period, RMSE selected an advanced multi-feedstock production technology from a European company for the Fort Morgan, Colo., plant. The company describes the Fort Morgan facility as the first in what it has trademarked as the Colorado bioXchange project, with plans for a string of integrated "regionally-scaled solutions in waste and biomass up-cycling." In addition to producing biodiesel from recycled vegetable oils, the company is working with an engineering firm to assess the feasibility of using glycerol and the organic sludge left from oil preprocessing along with other waste streams to produce biogas in an anaerobic digester. The Colorado bioXchange concept laid out on the company Web site also includes the development of fertilizer products as well as vegetable and fresh water fish culture at the biorefining facility.