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Hawkeye Holdings, the holding company that owns Hawkeye Renewables of Iowa Falls, IA has announced that it has “temporarily delayed the initial public offering of shares of its common stock.”

According to a press release, Bruce Rastetter, CEO of Hawkeye, said, “We have decided to temporarily delay our IPO in light of current conditions in the equity markets, and the recent pullback in the energy segment in particular, which are not conducive at this time to achieving appropriate valuation. Hawkeye is enjoying record earnings and sales as a leading privately-held company in the renewable fuels market and will continue to make planned investments in new facilities as well as seek attractive acquisition opportunities in pursuit of our growth plan, and we remain on track to break ground next month on our new plant in Menlo, Iowa.”

This comes from the Aberdeen (SD) News and the columnist is Alan Guebert of Ag Comm in Delavan, Ill.

His conclusion on the food vs fuel issue is this: America will never run out of corn regardless of future domestic or foreign market demand. That bold prediction is not bold at all because price will ration supply.

Sure, we grumbled when gas prices topped $3 a gallon, but we still had fuel because price slowed demand to ensure supply. If it hadn’t, price would have risen until an inevitable market equilibrium was reached.

I know the food vs. fuel doomsayers are going to reply that the problem will be when the price gets too high and poor starving people can’t afford to buy corn to eat (bearing in mind that the corn we produce is generally not used for human consumption). But the whole column is a good read anyway and when it comes to economics prognosticating, it has just as much validity as anything else.

Ethanex Energy Inc., has entered into a joint venture with Star Ethanol, LLC for the construction and operation of an ethanol facility located in Franklin County, Illinois.

According to a press release, the facility will incorporate the fractionation technology developed at Ethanex’s SEMO plant (in Cape Girardeau, MO) and will produce 132 million gallons of fuel grade ethanol per year.

The joint venture company will be known as Ethanex Southern Illinois and will be 85% owned by Ethanex Energy and 15% owned by Star Ethanol.

According to a Chicago Tribune personal finance columnist, ethanol has the “cool factor” when it comes to investments.
Andrew Lackey’s September 17 column talks about some industries and companies that are currently on the “cool” list – including internet traffic services, TiVo and ethanol.
How cool is that?

Minority Agriculture Producers, an organization of Hispanic farmers and ranchers in Texas, is holding workshops this month to consider the possibility of getting together to start an ethanol production facility or two, or three.

According to this story from Texas A&M Ag News, cotton farmer Donnie Valdez envisions three large factories in the Rio Grande Valley turning crops into bio-fuels and fuel additives. One factory would use vast quantities of sugarcane to produce ethanol, another would make biodiesel from cottonseed oil and a third would produce ethanol from corn and grains.

Valdez is spearheading the workshops which will be held Sept. 20 and Sept. 25 at the Texas A&M University System Agricultural Research and Extension Center at Weslaco.

A final summit in October will involve U.S. Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-Mercedes) to discuss bio-fuels and other concerns of local growers.

The workshops are sponsored by Texas Cooperative Extension and Prairie View A&M University, among others.

An ethanol plant for Enid, Okla. (see previous post) will become a reality soon now that officials with Oklahoma Sustainable Energy have received initial investments in excess of $5 million.

According to this article in the Enid News, OSE officials will continue their equity drive through Sept. 26 unless the cap of 499 investors or $14 million is reached before then.

Owned by Oklahoma Ethanol LLC, a limited liability company formed as a joint venture between OSE and Chaparral Energy of Oklahoma City, Enid’s ethanol plant will convert 20 million bushels of corn and grain sorghum annually into 55 million gallons per year of fuel-grade ethanol, approximately 200,000 tons of distillers grains and approximately 154,000 tons of carbon dioxide gas.

Third Coast Biofuels, LLC is proposing a 40 to 60 million gallon ethanol plant for Wisconsin Rapids and Mayor Mary Jo Carson is “thrilled,” according to this article from the Wisconsin Technology Network.

Ron Kuehn, a Third Coast representative, explained at an informational city meeting this week that in the best-case scenario, the plant could be built by the spring of 2008.

Kansas City-based Alternative Energy Sources Inc. has announced the appointment of John A. Ward as executive vice president and director of operations.

According to a press release, Ward will be responsible for site selection, permitting, design and engineering of ethanol plants to be built in Iowa, Illinois and other locations. He will oversee the construction process for each plant and develop a management team to supervise day-to-day plant operations and ensure peak performance. In addition, he will evaluate international investment opportunities for AENS in developing alternative and renewable energy supplies.

For the past five years Ward managed all manufacturing and engineering functions of the corn-processing and the bio-products divisions at ADM, the nation’s No. 1 corn-processing and ethanol producer.

Ward joins two other former ADM execs, Mark Beemer, CEO, and Lee Blank, COO who formed the company in June.