Gay & Robinson Inc., which plans to build Hawaii’s first ethanol plant, is hopeful that its financial and logistical stumbling blocks are now behind it, but there remains a level of tension at the company as it moves ahead with plans to shift from producing sugar to distilling fuel.

Several difficult issues remain in launching the ethanol plant on the west side of Kauai, including completing the financing at a tough time for such projects to obtain credit.

The plant was originally supposed to be operational in 2007, but that timetable has now slipped by two years, with late 2009 the current estimate.

Those delays have proved costly for the Kauai project. In the past six years, U.S. ethanol production more than tripled, and corn, the major feedstock for Mainland ethanol plants, has gone up significantly in price, making production more expensive.

With banks and other lenders in retreat due to the subprime mortgage crisis, big money is hard to find.

“The credit-debt markets are in disarray,” said Gay & Robinson President Alan Kennett, who admits to some anxiety about the ability of his partner, Pacific West Energy, to get an ethanol plant financed and built soon.

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(Source: Jan TenBruggencate, Pacific Business News)