The Ports of Indiana are negotiating with a second biofuels company to develop a plant at the Port of Indiana-Mount Vernon, Ind., port officials said Thursday.
The new facility, along with the Aventine Renewable Energy Inc. ethanol plant announced late last year, will make Mount Vernon an important energy port, a port spokesman said.
It would be the fourth biofuels plant under development in Posey County.
The Indiana Port Commission, meeting Thursday in Mount Vernon, approved a change in a lease with Jackson Farm of Posey County that will allow 140 acres of 240 acres of port land now leased for farming to be leased for biofuels facilities.
Phil Wilzbacher, Mount Vernon port director, said that 116 acres of that property would be leased to Aventine Renewable Energy. About 24 acres would be leased to another biofuels company in negotiations with the ports, Wilzbacher said.
"So this is starting to fill out pretty nicely," said Port Commission Chairman Ken Kaczmarek said of the developments on Mount Vernon port property.
"It's changing the face of the port," Wilzbacher said.
Jody Peacock, a spokesman for the port, said the Aventine plant, which is being developed by a partnership with Consolidated Grain and Barge, another company at the port, will be the largest ethanol plant east of the Mississippi River.
It is expected to produce 110 million gallons of ethanol a year by Sept. 2008, port officials have said.
The Mount Vernon port is also the largest port for coal shipments in the U.S., Peacock said.
"This port will be producing a lot of energy in future years," Peacock said.
Two other biofuels facilities are under development in Posey County. Abengoa Bioenergy is proposing to build a facility on farmland now zoned for industrial use at West Franklin and Darnell School roads in southwestern Posey County, just two miles from Evansville. The ASAlliances Biofuels plant is being developed along old Indiana 69, the former Uniontown Road, on the west side of Mount Vernon near the GE Plastics plant.