ALBION, MI-An Ohio firm has broken ground on a $86 million ethanol plant in Michigan. The Andersons Inc. says the 55-million-gallon ethanol plant will be built at the site of its grain terminal in Albion. The new facility is expected to be complete by September 2006.

"We expect the construction process to employ approximately 250 people, and the plant itself, once operational, to create approximately 33 full- and part-time jobs," says Mike Anderson, president and CEO of Andersons.

The designer and general contractor will be ICM Inc. of Colwich, KS. Construction and term financing will be provided by CoBank, ACB and Farm Credit Services ofAmerica, both of Omaha; Greenstone Farm Credit Services, East Lansing, MI; and Farm Credit of Texas, Austin. Maumee, OH-based Andersons said the plant would provide an additional market for area corn growers, and will help stretch the country's oil supply.

"We are excited to be in the ethanol business, which we think fits very well with our longstanding expertise in grain trading and storage, commodity risk management, materials handling and rail transportation," Anderson says. Ethanol is a gasoline additive derived from corn, which the company expects to market to gasolineblenders and refineries in the Great Lakes region.