Mid-Missouri Energy, a farmer-based group of investors organizing to build in central Missouri, announced this month that it has chosen a site for its proposed 40-mmgy facility and extended its equity offering through the end of May. 
 	
 Countering its previous announcement to build near the town of Carrollton, Mo., the group now says it will build near Malta Bend, Mo. "The site committee's recommendation of the Malta Bend site was unanimous," said MME President Ryland Utlaut. "It's not set in stone, but it looks like Malta Bend is where we will build the plant."
 Fagen, Inc., MME's choice EPC design-builder for the project, supports MME's decision to build near Malta Bend because, Utlaut said, they have determined that less site preparation would be needed there. "(Malta Bend) was Fagen's preference - and ultimately ours - but they said they would build the plant at either site," Utlaut said. 
 	
 In addition to less site preparation, the Malta Bend site does not require a new access road, as the Carrollton site does, the MME president said, and opposition to the project by a Carroll County, Mo., resident stood to delay the project at the formerly preferred site.
 	
 Early this month, MME announced that it had extended its equity offering an additional 60 days, through May, even though corn producers investing in the project reached between $16.5 and $17.0 million in the first round of equity offerings. 
 	
 "We are ecstatic over these results," Utlaut said. "We are told that $15.3 million is the most any ethanol project in the nation has raised in their initial equity drive. For us to have surpassed that record is nothing short of amazing,. The $12 million mark was needed in order to be 51 percent farmer-owned, the requirement of Missouri's state incentives for ethanol production."
 	
 MME Treasurer Ron Linneman recalls the board thinking $12 million was a tremendous challenge when they started. "To think that producers have responded well beyond the $12 million mark really speaks to the potential out there," Linneman said. 
 	
 After the first phase of the equity drive, MME's board of directors saw the potential to make the ethanol project a 100 percent farmer-owned plant. In fact, the board expressed the desire throughout the equity drive to be 100 percent farmer-owned because "they believe that is in the best interest of farmers." 
 	
 The group's decision to extend the offering 60 days will allow new investors to come in and for existing investors to increase their stock purchases. EP

Group Sets Record Equity Drive and Extends Offering Period

Mid-Missouri Energy Names Malta Bend Site

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