Ethanol Plus for SunOpta

Article Excerpt

SUNOPTA INC. $11.99 (Toronto symbol SOY; SI Rating: Speculative) (905-455-2528; www.sunopta.com; Shares outstanding: 63.9 million; Market cap: $766.1 million) will partner with Central Minnesota Ethanol Co-op to complete feasibility and engineering studies to build a 10-million-gallon cellulosic ethanol plant. The partners will jointly own and operate the plant to be located in Little Falls, Minnesota. The plant will turn wood chips into ethanol. SunOpta’s BioProcess division engineers and sells proprietary steam explosion technology systems that use high heat and pressure to convert biomass such as sugar cane pulp, wood chips and straw into useful components such as ethanol. These waste products are much cheaper and more plentiful than the corn or fresh sugar cane typically used to produce ethanol. SunOpta gets the bulk of its revenues from its Foods division, which specializes in the sourcing, processing and distribution of organic, kosher and specialty food products. Its BioProcess operations are still in their early stages, but they provide a future growth area for…