Blue Flint Ethanol contributes to county’s corn production
By Lyndon Anderson
Submitted
When Blue Flint Ethanol came online in February 2007, corn production in McLean County was about 32,500 acres. In order to purchase the corn needed to operate the biorefinery, employees had to look far beyond the local market.
At that time, the primary corn-producing area in North Dakota was the southwest part of the state, hundreds of miles from Blue Flint Ethanol’s home in Underwood. More than 90 percent of the corn arrived via the Dakota Missouri Valley Western Railroad. Only about 10 percent of corn was purchased locally.
That ratio of local to regional corn has changed, and in a significant way, in recent years.
Today, over 90 percent of the corn used at the ethanol biorefinery is delivered via trucks within a 100-mile radius of Blue Flint Ethanol.
