A new plant would offer environmental and economic advantages, local bio-diesel producers said.

Wednesday, President of Delta Biofuel Inc. Clint Vegas invited the Natchez chapter of the Garden Club of America to tour the plant located in the old Ethyl petroleum plant.

Vegas said it was important to familiarize Natchez civic groups with the operations of the plant before operations begin.

“We want to be good neighbors to whoever is concerned with what we’re doing and we don’t mind talking to them,” Vegas said. “What better way to do that than to talk to a garden club?”

Vegas said the plant is in its construction phase and should be operational in March.

The biodiesel production process requires crushing soybeans, extracting the soy oil and adding methanol, which creates the biodiesel and a bi-product, glycerin.

The plant’s head engineer, Scott Nisula, said glycerin is used in a lot of personal care products as a moisturizing agent.

Other environmental advantages of biodiesel, Nisula said, include a 35 percent reduction of greenhouse gases and toxic vehicle emissions are lowered more than 80 percent.

Once operations begin, Vegas said the company will hire approximately 30 to 50 employees including engineers and plant operators.

Once the plant opens, Vegas said the company goal is to start in a step process.

The company plans to first produce 15 million gallons of biodiesel per year, eventually reaching its ultimate goal of 100 million gallons a year.

But Vegas said there would also be “spin off” opportunities as the company expanded.

“There is certainly the potential of a trucking company if we’re going to be moving 60 to 80 million gallons (of biodiesel) in a year and half,” Vegas said.

Currently, the plant is storing soy oil that will be used for production of biodiesel once it opens.

The first shipment of about 500,000 gallons of soy oil was transported from Kentucky by barge on Dec. 27.

Wednesday, before the tour, Vegas said the second shipment of another 500,000 gallons would probably reach Natchez this weekend.

Garden club president Sherry Jones said she enjoyed the presentation and tour.

“This was a good education for us,” Jones said.

“The Garden Club of America is very interested in conservation and conserving our earth’s energy.”

Margaret Punches said she thought the program was excellent and “showed a lot of entrepreneurship.”

“I also think that any industry we can get here (Natchez) will be good for the community,” she said. “I mean 30 to 50 people, we’ll take that.”