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2007 has been a pretty good year for Archer Daniels Midland Company, with investors looking at gains of over 30 percent thanks in a large part to increased demand for ethanol.

ADM earnings skyrocketed this year, according to an AP report, more than doubling in its fiscal first quarter ended Sept. 30 to easily beat Wall Street estimates.

In the first half of the year, the stock surged close to 90 percent. But investor enthusiasm has waned in recent months, mostly as oil prices continue to cool and drive down spot prices for ethanol. Since the summer driving season ended, the price of crude has declined to the $60/barrel range and shares of Archer-Daniels have shed about 23 percent of their value.

ADM shares traded at $32 Friday on the New York Stock Exchange where the stock has ranged between $24.05 and $46.71 over the past 52 weeks.

Read more.

By the end of the year, Iowa will have produced a record 1.5 billion gallons of ethanol, more than one quarter of all the ethanol produced in the nation this year.

According to the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, Iowa ethanol plants will produce 36 percent more ethanol than last year’s 1.1 billion gallons.

With 26 biorefinies in operation, Iowa already has more ethanol plants than any other state. Another 16 new ethanol plants are under contruction and five major expansions underway which could more than double the state’s production by next year at this time. More than a dozen new projects are expected to be started in 2007.

Read more from the Associated Press.

One of two Florida ethanol plants planned by U.S. EnviroFuels is not going to happen now.

The company had run into issues earlier this year in negotiating a lease agreement to construct a 40 million gallon a year plant at Port Manatee. Company officials say because those issues could not be resolved, they are cancelling plans for the plant.

However, they intend to move forward with a similar plant at the Port of Tampa, which would be the first ethanol plant to be built in Florida. The plant is reportedly on track to be completed in 2008.

Read more from the Bradenton Herald and the St. Petersburg Times

Electronics retailer REX Stores Corporation of Dayton, Ohio has invested $14 million in Millennium Ethanol to build an ethanol producing facility in Marion, South Dakota.

Fagen, Inc. of Granite Falls, Minnesota is providing design, engineering, procurement and construction services for the plant. The plant is expected to begin ethanol production in early 2008 and will have a design capacity of 100 million gallons of ethanol and 320,000 tons of dried distillers grains per year. Millennium has reached an agreement with Archer Daniels Midland Company to market the ethanol.

Stuart Rose, REX Stores’ Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, “We are delighted to be moving forward with this investment in the Millennium ethanol production facility. Millennium was organized and is owned by over 900 South Dakota investors, including FREMAR FARMERS COOPERATIVE INC., which includes over 1,700 farmer members. Our participation in Millennium is consistent with our strategy to invest in farmer-owned projects.”

Read more.

Broin Companies has announced plans for an ethanol plant near Glenville, Minn.

Glenville is located less than 10 miles southeast of Albert Lea, Minn., which is home to EXOL, a separate Broin managed facility that came on-line in August 1999 and operates at 45 million gallons per year. The new 60 million gallon per year Glenville Ethanol project will consume 21 million bushels of locally grown corn and produce 178,000 tons of premium Dakota Gold Enhanced Nutrition Distillers Products™.

Read release from Broin.

In a press conference on Wednesday, President Bush noted the amazing growth in ethanol this year.

“I’m pleased with the fact that we’ve gone from about a billion gallons of ethanol to over five billion gallons of ethanol in a very short period of time,” Bush said.

According to the Renewable Fuels Association, by the time the year comes to a close, the U.S. will have used more than 5 billion gallons of ethanol. That’s 25 percent more than called for in the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) that went into effect at the beginning of the year.

The new Undersecretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Trade mentioned ethanol in his first meeting with reporters on Wednesday. Mark Keenum noted that there are now 110 ethanol refineries on line.

“And we’ve got about 50 or so refineries that are in the process of being constructed,” said Keenum. “When they come on line we’re going to be right at nine billion gallons.”

USDA chief economist Keith Collins said Wednesday that a record two billion bushels of corn was made into ethanol this year. “Many people in the industry are expecting that corn going to ethanol will increase by in the order of a billion bushels in 2007.”