Sunoco completes ethanol plant purchase

Oil refiner Sunoco Inc. said it completed its purchase of a 100 million gallons-per-year ethanol manufacturing facility in Volney, N.Y., from Northeast Biofuels L.P. for $8.5 million.

The purchase, announced in May, gives Philadelphia-based Sunoco the largest ethanol manufacturing facility in the Northeastern United States, where much of its retail gasoline network is located. When running at full capacity, the facility is expected to supply approximately 25 percent of Sunoco's ethanol needs.

Sunoco got the ethanol plant at a fraction of the cost to build a plant from scratch. The Volney facility is on the site of a former Miller brewery near Syracuse. It cost Northeast Biofuels $200 million to build. Construction began in 2006, but was problem-riddled and never completed, though some production occurred last year.    - Reid Kanaley