BUCKSPORT – The town could become home to one of the largest biodiesel refineries in the Northeast by the end of this year.

Dirigo Biofuels, an Iowa-based company whose owners have experience developing similar refineries in the Midwest, is working on plans for a plant in Bucksport that would produce 30 million gallons of biodiesel fuel from vegetable oil each year.

The plant planned by Dirigo Biofuels will be located on Route 15, although the exact site has not yet been determined, according to Tobin Bush, the project coordinator for Dirigo Biofuels.

“That decision has not been made yet,” Bush said this week. “It will be located somewhere around the Webber Tanks facility.”

The footprint of the plant will cover about seven acres and will include the processing plant and a dozen storage tanks that will hold the vegetable oil, catalyst materials used in the refining process, and the finished biodiesel product, Bush said. The company is still assessing how many people it will need to run the plant, but Bush estimated the facility will employ between 15 and 25 workers.

The company was drawn to Bucksport because of its proximity to the biodiesel market and because of the deep-water access it provides.

“Most of the feed stock [raw materials] is being grown in the Midwest, but the final product is used on the coast,” he said. “Maine is right in the heart of the home heating fuel market.”

The company plans to rely on the deep-water access in Bucksport to bring in the vegetable oils it will use in the refinery, and, potentially, to ship the finished product to customers. The Webber site became attractive because there are existing, unused fuel lines running from the Webber docks to the tank farm that Dirigo could use to offload vegetable oil from ships and to pump the finished product to tankers.

The deep-water port also gives the company some flexibility in choosing what types of vegetable oil it uses at the plant.

Although Bush said the plant could be completed by the end of this year, the project is still in the development stages in terms of financing, siting and design. The company has raised the seed capital for the project but is still raising the funds needed to build the plant, he said this week. Bush declined to put a price tag on the project at this time.

Engineers are working on developing the layout of the plant and initial work has begun on the permitting process. Bush said Dirigo Biofuels has hired the Bangor engineering firm of Woodard and Curran to shepherd the project through the state and local permitting process.

The company also expects to sign a lease for office space in town by the end of this week.

At 30 million gallons per year, the plant will be among the largest in the Northeast, said Bush, though he added that some new projects being planned are looking at building 60 million- and 80 million-gallon plants. Bush and his brother Scott Bush, the company’s CEO, have been involved with the development of about a dozen biodiesel plants in the Midwest, four of which are operating in Iowa. All of those have been in the 30 million-gallon range.

“That has been the standard,” he said. “It fits into the market pretty well. Without the deep-water port in Maine, there’s no way we’d be building that here. But with the port, we feel that 30 million gallons is the right number.”

Dirigo Biofuels is talking with a number of potential customers in the Northeast, including Webber Tanks.

“They are a company we would like to work with. They’re one of the reasons we’re here,” Bush said. “There are also other companies in the region and the state that we’d like to work with.”

Dirigo Biofuels is also discussing the possibility of purchasing steam from the nearby Verso Paper mill. Bush said they are talking with the town and the mill about the necessary water and sewer lines for the plant.

Although the process of refining vegetable oil into fuel has a long name – transesterification – it is a fairly simple process, Bush said. Basically, it involves adding to the raw product a catalyst that strips the glycerin from the vegetable oil and generates methyl-ester, more commonly known as biodiesel.

“It’s a highly efficient process. You get almost a one-to-one vegetable oil to biodiesel yield,” he said. “There are plants like these already in operation. We’ll be using a different technology than what we’ve used in the past, but that technology has been proven in Europe.”

Although Bush was confident that the plant could be completed by the end of this year, he said the company may opt to wait for warmer weather in 2008 to begin operation.

Fast facts

Biodiesel is a renewable fuel produced from agricultural resources such as vegetable oils. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, most biodiesel produced in the U.S. is made from soybean oil, although other oils including canola oil, sunflower oil, recycled cooking oils and animal fats also are used.

Biodiesel can be used in its pure form, known as “neat biodiesel” or B100, but it also can be blended with conventional, petroleum-based diesel, most commonly as B5 (a blend of 5 percent biodiesel and 95 percent diesel) and B20 (20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent diesel).

The EPA notes that although the use of biodiesel can result in better engine performance and lubrication, it also will mean a slight decrease in fuel economy. The agency also lists some “important” benefits. As an alternative to diesel, it can help reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

Biodiesel also provides significant greenhouse gas emission reductions. B100 reduces lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions by more than 50 percent while B20 reduces those emissions by 10 percent. In addition, biodiesel also reduces emissions of carbon monoxide, particulate matter and sulfates as well as hydrocarbon and air toxin emissions, according to an EPA fact sheet.