SOPERTON, GA—Range Fuels Inc., the Colorado-based company building an ethanol production plant in Soperton, GA, has expanded its Series B round from $100 million to $166 million, according to Dow Jones’ VentureBeat reports, citing a regulatory filing. “Range Fuels is the company closest to commercializing cellulosic ethanol,” said Walther Lovato, Portfolio Manager, Passport Capital, which led the round.
Morgan Stanley Capital Group is the only investor on the recent filing not cited when the company announced the oversubscribed round. Other investors include BlueMountain, Khosla Ventures, Leaf Clean Energy Company (advised by EEA Fund Management Ltd and Shaw Capital), and Pacific Capital Group (with participation by California Employee Retirement System (CalPERS).
According to VentureBeat, the company has called down $158 million of the financing.
The first phase of construction for the Soperton Plant is targeted to produce approximately 20 million gallons of ethanol and mixed alcohols per year and is scheduled for completion in 2009.
Lovato said at the time of the first announcement that, “Their technology and feedstock flexibility keeps costs low as they can deploy their plants near feedstock sources and quickly scale their business. Range Fuels projects a cost advantage over both corn ethanol and biochemical processes and offers a significant investment advantage over other technologies.”
Range Fuels uses a thermo-chemical process compared to most competing cellulosic processes which use biochemical technology.
The Range Fuels’ process also uses 75 percent less water than corn ethanol and is classified environmentally as a minor emitter with 60 percent less emissions compared to corn ethanol. It also yields significantly more ethanol per ton of biomass than biochemical processes, both reducing the cost of the fuel and the need for biomass and land.
Range Fuels will use woody biomass from Georgia’s vast forests.
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