By SHEILA RHOADES, Wabash Plain Dealer
NORTH MANCHESTER - Government officials and community leaders received the official word on Thursday, May 3, that Poet LLC is indeed building an ethanol facility three miles south of town.
The $130 million ethanol production plant will be called Poet Biorefining - North Manchester. Approximately 327 acres of land were purchased from Rex Grossman and Richard Miller. The site for the building will be east of Ind. 13 between county roads 800N and 850N, just east of the railroad tracks.
Mike Roth, director of site development for Poet, said, "This will be our 31st plant of the 115 ethanol facilities in the United States. To put things in perspective, of those 115 plants, Poet has built one-third of them."
Poet, formerly known as Broin Companies, is the largest dry-mill ethanol producer in the country and has a 20-year history of success.
Bill Konyha, president and CEO of the Economic Development Group of Wabash County, said, "Two things that we do really well in Wabash County are agriculture and manufacturing. Any opportunity that enables us to take locally grown crops and add value through processing is a win-win for the community."
Roth said crews will begin "moving dirt" in the latter part of July and the entire facility should be up and running by September or October next year, he added.
The new facility will create approximately 38-40 new jobs and with that, the state of Indiana has agreed to fund $32,500 per employee for training. In addition, the state will grant an additional $100,000 to Wabash County for the purpose of infrastructure.
"We welcome Poet to North Manchester and to Wabash County," Wabash County Commissioner Brian Haupert said. "We are grateful for the economic benefits that will come with their arrival."
The ethanol plant will have an annual production of 65 million gallons of ethanol and is expected to use 21 million bushels of corn. It is expected to produce about 178,000 tons of Dakota Gold Enhanced Nutrition Distillers Products and rail access will be through Norfolk Southern Corp. Annual gross sales will near $100 million and annual area expenditures could reach $70 million.