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Manatee ethanol plant is dropped

By STEVE HUETTEL
Published December 21, 2006

The developer planning to build Florida's first large-scale ethanol plant at Tampa's port has scrapped a second project at Port Manatee.

U.S. EnviroFuels of Riverview is asking the Manatee County Port Authority to terminate its lease option on nearly 5 acres at the port.

The company could not make a deal to sublease 20 adjacent acres from TransMontaigne Product Services that it needed for the $86-million plant, said Steve Tyndal, a senior director at the port authority.

"They realized they couldn't do it here, and unfortunately there's no other place available at the port," he said. The agency's governing board is scheduled to vote on ending the lease option today.

The plant would have employed 35 workers at an average salary of $52,000 and generated about $750,000 a year for the port, Tyndal said.

Plans for the $86-million Tampa plant, designed to produce 44-million gallons of ethanol annually, remain on track for an opening in mid 2008, said Bradley Krohn, president of U.S. EnviroFuels.

Next month, the company will receive from Hillsborough County the last of six government permits it needs to start construction, he said. U.S. EnviroFuels expects to close financing by March, said Krohn, who declined to identify the funding source or say how much debt the company would assume for the project.

With the Manatee plans ended, "we are focusing all our resources on seeing the Port of Tampa project to completion," he said. The plant will employ about 40 workers at salaries averaging about $50,000.

U.S. EnviroFuels has a lease option on 22 acres owned by the Tampa Port Authority at Port Sutton, a heavily industrial area east of U.S. 41.

Gov. Jeb Bush signed the state's first energy bill on the plant site in June. The law provides $7.5-million annually for the next four years in corporate income tax credits and sale tax exemptions to businesses that produce and distribute clean fuels such as ethanol.

U.S. EnviroFuels will distill ethanol from crops like corn shipped into the port. The company plans to sell ethanol to a distributor at the port who would mix it with unleaded gasoline for sale to retailers.

Steve Huettel can be reached at huettel@sptimes.com or 813226-3384.

BUSH: WORK HARDER TO KICK OIL HABIT

President Bush said Wednesday that the United States must redouble efforts to wean itself off oil.

Bush said he's "encouraged" by new battery technology for automobiles and is "pleased" with the increase in use of corn-based ethanol. He repeated his support for expanding the use of nuclear power and investing in clean-coal technology.

In January, Bush declared the United States "addicted" to oil and set a goal of cutting Middle Eastern imports by 75 percent by 2025.

[Last modified December 20, 2006, 23:11:14]