Plant meets construction and corn cost challenges, chairman says

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

by MARY BAXTER

“We’re certainly not all that disappointed seeing grain prices at the point where people can make a living at it,” said Tom Cox, in a telephone interview Monday. Cox is chairman of the 850-member Integrated Grain Processors Cooperative (IGPC) Ethanol Inc.

Despite high corn prices, Cox said profit margins for the Aylmer-based plant look better now than they did a year ago, mainly because the price of oil rose to roughly $100 a barrel from around $60. “The absolute price of corn doesn’t matter so much as the spread between the price of corn and the price of ethanol,” he explained.

Cox said optimism surrounding the venture was very evident during the coop’s annual meeting last week, which included a tour of the nearly complete Aylmer facility. “In the early stages you talked about a proposed plan, and it was a bit of a dream and now for people to actually see concrete and stainless steel and things are basically reaching the end of construction,” people were “thrilled,” he said.

Those attending also had a chance to meet the coop’s new chief executive officer, Jim Grey. A former president of Casco Inc. and former general manager of the Ontario Soybean Growers, Grey comes to the job with the development of a corn wet milling facility for Jungbunzlauer in Austria fresh under his belt.

Cox said the plant could open six to eight weeks ahead of schedule: “We expect to be grinding corn by the end of July.”

So far, the plant, which is anticipated to cost $140 million to complete, has received nearly $30 million in federal and provincial funding, which includes a $3.9 million federal grant, announced last week. Other funding has been raised from member investors as well as financing, Cox has said previously.

Last year, IGPC announced that Cargill would be sourcing corn for the facility. The facility is projected to produce annually 150 million litres of ethanol using 15 million bushels of corn. BF