VeraSun Energy will hold a grand opening ceremony for its 110 million-gallon-a-year ethanol plant at Charles City, Iowa on August 17th, 2007.

A company press release says Democratic Presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama will be the keynote speaker at the event… which still has its exact time to be determined. The grand opening actually comes several months after the plant started opening:

VeraSun Charles City began production in early April, nearly three months ahead of schedule. It was the third VeraSun facility to begin production, bringing the company to its current annual capacity of 340 million gallons per year (MMGY). The plant will annually process 39 million bushels of corn and produce 350,000 tons of distillers grains for livestock feed in addition to 110MMGY of ethanol.

Don Endres, Chairman and CEO of VeraSun, will also speak at the event. Bob Dinneen, President of the Renewable Fuels Association and Rick Tolman, CEO of the National Corn Growers Association will join the group as well.

Check out this picture of the Charles City plant from VeraSun’s web site.