Aurora plant restarts ethanol production

Aventine Renewable Energy has restarted ethanol production in Aurora, Nebraska, using government surplus sugar.

The ethanol producer, based in Pekin, Illinois, has shipped the Aurora plant's first batches of sugar-based ethanol from the production complex that has been closed for several periods over the past few years.

'The liquidation of sugar stocks by the commodity programme at USDA provides a means of diverting the US sugar inventory into a market where it will disappear without distorting or competing with the conventional table sugar markets,' says Todd Sneller, administrator of the Nebraska Ethanol Board.