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Business Briefs - April 30, 2008

IPL plans 100-MW wind farm

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (AP) — Indianapolis Power and Light (IPL) hopes to become the latest Indiana utility to tap into the power of the wind.

IPL announced plans April 24 for a 100-megawatt wind farm in Benton County in the state’s northwestern corner that the company says will power about 24,000 residential homes. State regulators must approve IPL’s proposed Hoosier Wind Project, which the company says is also contingent on Congress extending a federal renewable energy tax credit.

The Indianapolis-based utility has 468,000 central Indiana customers. Its proposed wind farm is at least the fourth commercial wind farm planned for the state.

Next month, a 130-megawatt wind farm being developed by Orion Energy, also in Benton County, will become the first of those to come online.

Illinois makes Fortune 500 list

NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly three dozen Illinois companies made this year’s Fortune 500 list. The annual rankings by Fortune magazine lists the nation’s largest publicly traded corporations and is based on the companies’ 2007 revenues.

Illinois’ top company continues to be Chicago-based airplane maker Boeing, which had more than $66 billion in sales and ranked 27th. That’s one spot higher than last year. Bloomington’s State Farm Insurance fell one spot to 32, with nearly $62 billion in revenue.

Walgreens, McDonald’s, drug company Abbott Laboratories and machinery maker Caterpillar were among the other Illinois companies who saw their rankings improve.

Osceola co. penalized for waste

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said an Osceola company must pay a $50,000 civil penalty for violating wastewater rules.

A Clarke County judge ordered that Miller Products Co. pay the penalty for discharging a toxic chemical used in the manufacturing of nuts, bolts and pins used for farm and home equipment. The company no longer uses the chemical.

Discharges by the company did not cause the city of Osceola to violate its discharge limits.

Alltech expands overseas

LEXINGTON, Ky. — As part of its continuing global expansion, Alltech, a leader in animal health and nutrition, has announced the opening of its first office in New Zealand.

The new Auckland-based office forms part of the company’s overall growth plans and reinforces its commitment to the New Zealand animal feed and food production industries. The Auckland office will provide sales and service support to the growing number of partners and customers in the country. The facility provides an example of the company’s business policy of thinking on a global scale while taking action in the communities of which it is a part.

For the past 20 years, the New Zealand distributor of Alltech products, Cundy Technical Services Ltd. (CTS), has supported Alltech products and values in the New Zealand market. Mike and Diana Cundy will continue to provide support and consultative services to Alltech (NZ) Ltd. in its developmental stages.

Alltech has also expanded its production facility in São Pedro, Brazil, by adding a fully automated blending and packaging system. The state-of-the-art system allows Alltech to take product from its yeast facility by pulling from each of four large-scale spray dryers, blending, packaging and palletizing automatically.

The system is expected to enable the company to package more than 60,000 tons per year and distribute on a global scale. The system was supplied by Buhler, one of Alltech’s global technology partners.

The facility, the largest of its kind in the world, is home to several of Alltech’s products, including Bio-Mos, MTB-100, Sel-Plex and NuPro, and consistently meets the company’s rigorous standards of quality.

The Alltech Quality System is currently in operation in 14 production facilities and 68 blending and warehouse sites across the globe.

4/30/2008