The terminal, on the BNSF railway, will have 160,000 bbls of storage and will receive full 96-car unit trains of ethanol, which can be offloaded within 24 hours.   “We believe Birmingham is a significant growth market, and development of this unit train terminal is a part of our ongoing effort to expand and diversify our business platform along the value chain,” said GPRE President and CEO Todd Becker.
“With superior services provided by BNSF Railway and BlendStar, operation of this new terminal will provide better transportation economics to shippers, as it will be the eastern most point for direct ship on the railroad to receive ethanol from the Midwest. This will result in improved ethanol distribution through one of the most modern and efficient ethanol terminals in the U.S. when it is completed,” he added.   
When complete, the terminal will provide a fully-automated rail unloading system with the initial capacity to distribute approximately 385,000 bbls/month of ethanol, with 24-hour truck loading service, BlendStar noted. The company is in final negotiations with customers for multi-year terminaling agreements for the capacity of the facility. BlendStar’s current Birmingham terminal will be retrofitted to handle other biofuels and liquid products when construction of the new unit train terminal facility is complete, the company noted.   
The company operates blending and terminaling facilities in seven states, with throughput capacity of approximately 495 million gal/yr.