Gevo ships commercial bio-isobutanol from Luverne

ERJ staff report (LMH)

Englewood, Colorado -- Gevo, Inc., a renewable chemicals and next generation biofuels company, said it has successfully produced and shipped commercial-quality bio-isobutanol to its customers in the 17 weeks since it opened its facility in Luverne, Minnesota, in May.

"To date, we have proven we can produce bio-isobutanol, and do it on a commercial scale - years ahead of the competition," said CEO Patrick Gruber. "This start-up is very typical of other start-ups we have done: you have to learn a lot in a very short period of time, both what works well and what needs to be adjusted. Early indications are that, while we are making significant progress towards economic production levels, we will not achieve our desired year-end run rate - instead we would expect to achieve that during 2013.

Gruber noted that the company has decided to optimise specific parts its technology to further enhance bio-isobutanol production rates, in order to make significant progress towards economic production rates. The company will temporarily move ethanol production out of Luverne.

"In five short years, we have gone from start-up to commercial-scale production at the world's first commercial bio-isobutanol production facility," Gruber added. "Production start-ups are never easy, but we are years ahead of our competition and well on our way to realising economic production levels during 2013."

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News release from Gevo