OK Biodiesel to start production in Oklahoma

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A retired engineer and his sons have built a biodiesel plant in Gans, Okla., and, at press time, anticipated the start of production to take place sometime in June. "We built it ourselves," Erik Davis said of OK Biodiesel. "My dad is a retired engineer, and my brother and I have been in construction pretty much all our lives."

The final equipment will arrive for the completion of the facility in early June, Davis told Biodiesel Magazine. "We expect to install the centrifuge [the weekend of June 2] and have [the plant] fired up [by June 5]."

OK Biodiesel originally planned to offer its fuel at retail pumps on-site, but the arrangement with its marketer Basin Oil has accounted for all of the projected plant capacity, which is 10 MMgy. "We do have [pumps], but we are not going to use them," Davis said. "Our marketer has everything we can make sold, and then some."

Commodities broker Kesterson Ag of Arkansas will market glycerin for the plant, according to Davis. The biodiesel produced by the facility will be ASTM grade, Davis said. The centrifuge for the batch process facility was purchased from Kyte Centrifuge, a chemical engineering company with offices in Houston and Orlando. "We plan to fill our tanks and have [biodiesel] ready for going out early next week," Davis said.

The facility will use soy oil as a feedstock and a batch system designed by OK Biodiesel. It will also have a feedstock storage capacity of 40,000 gallons and another 40,000 for finished product. "We are chomping at the bit to get this going," Davis said. "We are making an ASTM-grade product and can't wait to get started."

Currently, there is only one biodiesel producer in Oklahoma: Green Country Biodiesel Inc. in Chelsea. Earth Biofuels was in the process of opening a plant in Durant in early June.