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GS AgriFuels completes investment in biorefinery operator |
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Written by Giles Clark, London
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Wednesday, 03 January 2007 |
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GS AgriFuels Corporation has acquired a 14.3% stake in Missoula, MT-based Sustainable Systems, Inc., an agricultural company focused on high-value culinary oil, biobased fuels, and bioproducts. Sustainable has initiated an expansion of its oilseed crush facility in Culbertson, MT. The Montola facility is expected to double its current oilseed processing capacity to 600 tons per day after the expansion.
In addition to completing its investment in Sustainable, GS AgriFuels received a purchase order from Sustainable for a ten million gallon per year biodiesel system through its wholly-owned subsidiary, NextGen Fuel Inc. Fabrication of the NextGen biodiesel system is expected to begin later this year for co-location at Sustainable’s Culbertson, Montana oilseed crush plant. The system, which is being manufactured by Warnecke Design in Van Wert, Ohio, is expected to operate using various vegetable oilseed crops that grow in the region of the existing crush plant.
GS AgriFuels President, Tom Scozzafava, stated, “We are pleased to have made this investment in what we see as a very logical business model based on both food and fuel grade vegetable oils. We look forward to working closely with Sustainable’s management as we build our respective businesses.” Paul Miller, Sustainable President and CEO added, “GS AgriFuels offered us a strategic partner with significant technical depth who understood our business model and growth potential. Over recent months we have had an opportunity to work with the AgriFuels team and have benefited from their knowledge of clean technology as it relates to biomass. The GS AgriFuels Team complimented our expertise in working within rural America on the feedstock supply chain. We are excited about their proprietary NextGen technology as well as other biomass conversion technologies in their portfolio and how they may interrelate with our domestic and international biorefinery developments.”
As part of the transaction, Mr. Scozzafava will be placed on Sustainable’s board of directors. The biodiesel system being purchased by Sustainable Systems, Inc. represents NextGen’s fifth customer order for equipment in the past 90 days - in total representing 40 million gallons of annual production capacity.
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