Proposed Business and Implementation Strategy
In General. To achieve our goal of becoming
a significant producer of ethanol in the U.S., that is, a producer of
500 million gallons per year of ethanol, we have developed a strategy
that we intend to pursue. Our strategy, which is dependent on our ability
to obtain significant additional capital, has the following important
elements:
Low-cost production capacity. It is our
intention to capitalize on the growing demand in the U.S. for ethanol
by establishing increasing production capacity as quickly as possible
over the next several years. In pursuing our expansion strategy, we
will seek to build and/or acquire large-scale facilities with design
elements that incorporate technology improvements and continue to build
and/or acquire facilities in locations with access to multiple rail
services. We believe that using similar facility designs will permit
us to lower our costs relating to spare parts and to take advantage
of our operations experience to be gained at other future facilities.
Focus on Cost Efficiency. Our corporate
challenge will always be to seek greater economies of scale in our operations
and to maximize energy efficiency and increase yield. Included in this
challenge will be to purchase corn during peak supply periods to reduce
our corn costs and to reduce our per-unit energy and transportation
costs where possible.
Seek Beneficial Alternative Technologies. Our
management intends to investigate the feasibility of implementing, at
some time in the future, new technologies that would serve to augment
or replace natural gas usage. It is expected that these technologies
would allow us to reduce our energy costs. Capital costs and engineering
issues must be adequately addressed prior to any implementation of any
such technology.
Seek to Expand Market Demand for Ethanol. As
our rate of growth and our access to capital permit, our management
intends to take actions it believes will create additional demand for
ethanol, including, investing in new technologies that use ethanol and
employing institutional advertising that focuses on, and promotes the
use of, ethanol.
Pursue Potential Acquisition Opportunities. Assuming
that we have capital available, we believe that, as the ethanol industry
matures, opportunities for expansion of our business through acquisitions
will be available. Such an acquisition could involve additional ethanol
production, storage or distribution facilities and related infrastructure,
as well as potential facility sites under development. Our current efforts
in acquiring ACE Ethanol, LLC is an example of this plan.