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Ringneck ethanol plant a ‘showcase’ of Sukup equipment
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by Sukup Manufacturing Co.
ingneck Energy’s shiny new 80- to 100-million-gallon/year ethanol plant was hailed at its grand opening June 25th as the most efficient in the United States and as a showcase of Sukup Manufacturing Co. material handling and grain storage equipment. It is the largest single-site deployment of Sukup equipment both in number of pieces and in dollar value, said Steve Sukup, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Sukup Manufacturing and a member of the Ringneck Energy Board of Directors. “As a company we’ve been expanding our commercial-scale material handling equipment offerings for the past several years,” he said. “This project really pulls it all together in a way that shows we can equip big commercial projects with the grain storage and handling equipment they need.” Sukup equipment at Ringneck includes two 105’ diameter, 25-ring grain storage bins and a 21’ diameter, 17-ring hopper bin; several bucket elevators and conveyors; several catwalks and support towers, including an 18’ x 18’ x 160’ tower; two zeroentry bin sweeps, each with a 12” diameter auger; two buildings, including a 125’ x 250’ x 40’ warehouse for dried distillers grains and a 65’ x 100’ x 40’ unloading and loading building. “We wanted to be a Sukup showplace, and hopefully we’ve 88|September2019-MillingandGrain
accomplished that,” said Walt Wendland, Chief Executive Officer of Ringneck Energy. Construction of the US $130 million Ringneck project began in 2017 and ended near the end of 2018. Production began in April. The plant was designed to produce 80 million-to-100 million gallons-per-year of ethanol. It can load a 96-car train of tanker cars in about one week. “This plant is awesome. It can do really great things,” Danci Baker, Chief Financial Officer, told Ringneck shareholders at their first annual meeting prior to the grand opening of the plant. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem and Lt Governor Larry Rhoden both attended the event and praised the project. “We’ve been following this for quite some time,” Noem said, adding that she personally is an investor in the facility and is pushing to expand the use of ethanol blends in state vehicles. She and Rhoden said they would like to see South Dakota be a leader in the ethanol industry and encouraged the roughly 100 people attending the grand opening to encourage their friends and relatives to use ethanol products. As well, they should discourage federal officials from granting waivers to companies that do not want to blend their fuels with ethanol. Waivers have cost the ethanol industry billions of gallons, Noem said. Ron Fagen, Chairman of Fagen Inc, general contractor for the Ringneck plant, has had a hand in construction of more than 100 of the roughly 250 ethanol plants in the United States. He said the Sukup equipment, company leaders and