Full Description

Aventine Renewable Energy Holdings, Inc. (Aventine) is a producer and marketer of fuel-grade ethanol in the United States. The Company’s own production facilities produced 188.8 million gallons of ethanol during the year ended December 31, 2008. The Company has been a marketer of ethanol, distributing ethanol purchased from other third-party producers in addition to its own ethanol production. During 2008, the Company distributed 754.3 million gallons of ethanol produced by others. Taken together, it marketed and distributed 936 million gallons of ethanol during 2008. It markets and distributes ethanol to many energy companies in the United States, including Royal Dutch Shell and its affiliates, Marathon Petroleum, BP, ConocoPhillips, Valero Marketing and Supply Company, Exxon/Mobil and Chevron. In addition to producing ethanol, its facilities also produce several co-products, such as distillers grain, corn gluten meal and feed, corn germ and brewers’ yeast. In April 2009, the Company and its subsidiaries filed voluntary petitions under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code in the District of Delaware.

The Company derives its revenue from the sale of ethanol. It also derives revenue from the sale of co-products (corn gluten feed and meal, corn germ, condensed corn distillers with solubles (CCDS), carbon dioxide, distillers grains with soluble (DDGS) and wet distillers grains with solubles (WDGS)) and bio-products (brewers’ yeast) which are produced as by-products during the production of ethanol at its plants. Its dry mill facilities in Pekin, Illinois and Aurora, Nebraska produce co-products, such as DDGS, WDGS and carbon dioxide. Its Illinois wet mill facility also produces bio-products, Kosher and Chametz free brewers’ yeast, which is processed into a growing variety of products for use in animal and human food and fermentation applications.