CLATSKANIE — Cascade Grain Products plans to have construction under way this month on a $197 million ethanol plant project at the Port of St. Helens’ Port Westward industrial park. “It’s a lot easier to finance energy-related projects now that the price of gas is where it is,” says CEO Charles Carlson. The plant, which will employ 50 full-time workers, will begin production in 2008 and consume nearly 110,000 bushels of corn per day imported from the Midwest to produce 113 million gallons of ethanol per year. A $20 million loan from the Oregon Department of Energy’s State Energy Loan Program supplements a $77 million investment by Berggruen Holdings. |
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