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Wyoming And Private Company Invest In Fuels Plant

https://pixabay.com/en/chemistry-chemical-flask-glass-155121/

After accepting a $15 million dollar loan from the State of Wyoming, Standard Alcohol Inc. is continuing plans for a new facility at Swan Ranch, outside of Cheyenne. The loan is set to be paid back in twenty years, while the rest of the funding for the $76 million dollar plant will come from private investments.

The company will use natural gas, coal, and CO2 to create a gasoline additive that company vice president Robert Johns says is high value.

Johns says that natural gas is the main input, and that the state has supported the company because it will increase demand for several products of the drilling and mining industries.

“We’ve worked very intently with the Wyoming Pipeline Authority,” Johns said. “Of course, the other thing that’s really important here is that we are also able to use coal as a feedstock for this same kind of technology. So we’ve got some versatility here that we think is very important, and another reason why we think the state of Wyoming is a great home for us.”

Johns says Standard Alcohol and its Wyoming corporation, Big Horn Technologies, will be one of the top five consumers of natural gas in the state, and will also use a large amount of CO2. The company is also developing a research partnership with the University of Wyoming’s School of Energy Resources.

Standard Alcohol expects to create 32 jobs, with $49 million in wages and $40 million in state tax revenue over the next two decades. Construction could begin in the summer or fall, with hiring beginning about a year later.

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