Corn Oil Extraction Yields New Benefits for Ethanol Producers

April 12, 2006

Several ethanol producers have recently placed orders with Veridium Corporation for the use of a technology that extracts corn oil from distiller's dried grain, an ethanol by-product. The ethanol plants sell the extracted corn oil back to Veridium for additional revenue. Veridium, in turn, sells the corn oil to Mean Green Biofuels, Inc., which is currently selling the corn oil on the open market, but eventually plans to convert the corn oil into biodiesel. Veridium has received five orders for its Corn Oil Extraction Systems, which it installs at no cost in exchange for buying back the corn oil at below-market costs. The company has installed a system at an ethanol plant in North Dakota, and plans to install systems at ethanol plants in Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin later this year.

Veridium estimates that the five Corn Oil Extraction Systems now under order could produce as much as 9.7 million gallons of corn oil per year, which the company will sell for more than $1 per gallon. According to the company, the distiller's dried grain produced by today's ethanol industry contains roughly 300 million gallons of corn oil, 75 percent of which can be removed by the extraction process. Once extracted, the corn oil can be converted gallon for gallon into biodiesel. The company says the corn oil extraction process also increases ethanol plant efficiencies, since it reduces the energy required for drying the distiller's grain, which is sold as cattle feed. See the Veridium press releases and the description of the technology on the Mean Green BioFuels Web site.