Ethanol plant looks to build in Moses Lake

Director offers updates on various GCEDC projects

GRANT COUNTY — After about eight years, the Grant County Economic Development Council is finally expecting good news about one of its projects.

Pacific Rim Ethanol nearly brought an ethanol production plant to town about two years ago. At a GCEDC quarterly membership meeting in June, GCEDC executive director Terry Brewer said that the project had been renewed as a corn-based ethanol plant, larger than originally purchased and expecting a 100 million gallon annual output. Brewer said the company had signed an option to purchase the former Pacific Northwest Sugar Company, a sugar beet processing plant in Moses Lake, and was moving forward with engineering.

Brewer offered another update before last week's GCEDC board meeting, in which it was announced that Grant County would soon house the Seattle-based company Richards Brush. Brewer said Pacific Rim Ethanol had changed its name to Moses Lake Ethanol, and it was hoped that there would be an announcement that it is moving forward in 2006.

"It's a new limited liability corporation," he explained later in the week. "Most of the principals that were Pacific Rim Ethanol are now Moses Lake Ethanol. Not all — at least one group went away, and then there's some new people that are on board here now that weren't with Pacific Rim Ethanol."

Brewer said that the company is telling him that discussions with finance people are progressing very well.

"They are presenting their business plan, their pro forma, to finance people, Wall Street and elsewhere now, and they feel they're getting good interest and hope that they'll be able to have their financing commitments in order by the end of the year, is what they've told me," Brewer said.

The company is back to work on new permits, as the facility is a different one than Pacific Rim Ethanol had engineered and had permitted, Brewer said.

He said that employment at the ethanol production plant "would be in the neighborhood" of 70 direct jobs, and a large number of indirect employment.

He said that this is probably the most opportune time to see the project move forward.

"During the eight years we've worked on it, I don't think we've seen a better time — the energy bill passing Congress, fuel prices being as high as they are; the business plan really works," Brewer said.

Now, he added, it's a matter of convincing finance people that an ethanol plant would work in Washington, when they're used to seeing them in the Midwest and surrounded by corn for many miles.

"There's a lot of corn grown in the Columbia Basin, there could be more in the future if the demand marketplace is here, and they've made provisions to bring in the corn that they can't buy here, by unit train," Brewer said. "It looks to me like it works and the principals believe that it does, and believe that they're going to get it done."

Representatives from Moses Lake Ethanol, Specialty Chemical (a GCEDC project formerly referred to by the codename "Swift") and Guardian Industries (formerly "Seasons") have gone before the Grant County Public Utility District Commission to talk about the importance of low-cost energy in their potential decisions to locate in Grant County.

"If energy prices were as high here as they were elsewhere, those companies wouldn't be here," Brewer said.

Other GCEDC projects are further out, Brewer said, including a data center which is showing interest.

Brewer stressed that many things must come together to result in a positive business plan for a company in a given location. The more remote and smaller a location, the harder it can be to measure up on some scales.

"Fortunately for us, things like (Moses Lake) Ethanol, we measure up quite well on the labor market scale for them," he said, adding that Moses Lake is in the middle of their major marketplace. "If the energy is available here in affordable rates, they can make that project work here if they get the financing."

On the other projects, Moses Lake is not near the marketplace, and rising transportation costs must be off-set by other factors for companies eyeing the area, such as water supply or wastewater treatment in the case of food processors.

"There are a lot of competitors out there that want these projects," he said, adding that in every case, he thinks they are good projects and good companies. "They're going to add significant income and economic spin in our community — a significant number of good paying jobs, significant investment on the tax roll; new revenues for our cities, town and county government while at the same time helping to keep our levy rate down for the rest of us."