Butamax and Highwater Ethanol Complete Phase 1 of Biobutanol Retrofit Project

Lamberton, Minnesota, Aug. 20, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ButamaxTM Advanced Biofuels, LLC, the leading biobutanol technology company, announced the official completion of Phase 1 of a Butamax technology installation at Highwater Ethanol, including the installation of a novel corn oil separation technology. Butamax and Highwater Ethanol are happy to announce that the construction is complete and the facility is now in full operation.

On October 2nd last year Butamax announced that we had begun Phase 1 of a retrofit of Highwater Ethanol's plant in Lamberton, Minnesota for the production of biobutanol. The cutting edge separation technology package includes a novel corn oil removal system and is an integral part of a full retrofit to biobutanol production.

"This project has validated Butamax's rigorous approach to technology development and piloting ahead of commercial deployment of new technology" said Butamax CEO, Paul Beckwith. "Construction was completed on March 21st, 2014. Just five days later the facility was processing feed at the full capacity of the Highwater plant, and producing corn oil at a high rate. We could not be happier with the results and with our partnership with Highwater Ethanol."

Brian Kletscher, CEO of Highwater Ethanol said: "Installation of the Butamax front-end separation and corn oil removal technology was recently completed at Highwater Ethanol, LLC, and we are very pleased to be on the cutting edge with this value-adding first step towards Butamax's butanol technology."

"Fagen is pleased to have contributed to the success of this first of a kind ethanol plant addition", said Ron Fagen, Board Chairman of Fagen Inc. "We look forward to supporting Butamax in replicating this installation to add to the profitability of many more ethanol plants across the industry."

Beckwith also stated: "By proving a key component of our technology at full scale, we are positioned to commercialize our full isobutanol package with much reduced technical risk. This is an important milestone on the way to commercial biobutanol production."