The company has signed contracts with several local biomass producers, and is currently in talks with others, to obtain the required annual supply of 315,000 tons of cellulosic biomass by the end of 2011.
Upon start-up, the facility, slated to be commissioned in 2013, will convert about 315,000 dry tons per year of crop residue and cellulosic energy crops to 25 million gallons of ethanol, while also generating 25MW of electrical power, enough to power the ethanol conversion process.
Abengoa will begin harvesting biomass in the fall of 2011 and will continue in the summer and fall of 2012.
The construction of the Hugoton, Kansas, plant will start this summer and full commercial operation is expected in the first half of 2013.
The company said that this facility will be Abengoa’s first second-generation facility and seventh bioethanol facility in the US, bringing the company’s total biofuel production in the country to more than 400 million gallons.
