Range Fuels website down; is bankruptcy filing imminent?

In Georgia, the saga of Range Fuels took a turn for the macabre on, perhaps appropriately, Halloween day when unconfirmed reports surfaced that the company will file for bankruptcy. Current investors are said to have taken the decision to pull the plug after the company ran into substantial headwinds in efforts to raise fresh capital. Meanwhile, the company’s website at rangefuels.com no longer is in operation.

In January, the Digest reported that Range Fuels had made layoffs in Colorado and Georgia, and would shut down its Soperton, Georgia plant after an initial ethanol demonstration run in order to raise more capital and “tackle technical problems.”

That was generally in line with guidance from Range CEO David Aldous in February 2010, who told the Digest that “We intend to run our first year in campaign mode with several different tests and bringing the plant down between campaigns to analyze plant equipment and design for incorporation of learnings into future phases of the plant.

Range spokesman Patrick Wright told Earth2Tech in January that the company would meet its 2011 production goals set by EPA, which include 2.9 million gallons of methanol and 100,000 gallons of ethanol.  Range received an $80 million loan guarantee from USDA last year, after previously scoring a DOE cellulosic ethanol grant in 2008, and raising $100 million in a private equity round in 2008 led by Khosla Ventures.