Imperial Petroleum Racks Up First DEP Biodiesel Sales

12 July 2006

Imperial Petroleum’s wholly-owned subsidiary Hoosier Biodiesel Company has received its first purchase order for B100 biodiesel sales in connection with its planned marketing arrangement with Domestic Energy Partners.

The purchase order is for 20,000 gallons of B100 biodiesel per month with the first sales beginning September 1, 2006. The sales contract is subject to adequate testing by the purchaser to insure that the B100 biodiesel meets ASTM specifications.

In May, Imperial Petroleum signed a Letter of Intent with Domestic Energy Partners (DEP) to sell up to 25 million gallons annually of biodiesel manufactured by DEP using its proprietary process. DEP claims it has developed a simplified process for the production of ASTM D-6751 standard biodiesel from virgin or waste oil using a solid catalyst in a “black-box” system. The process eliminates the need to wash the fuel to remove the acid or base catalyst used in typical production processes. (Earlier post.)

The process developed by DEP requires substantially less equipment and space than the traditional biodiesel manufacturing plants and is, according to the company, more cost-effective than conventional processes.

DEP estimates that its process offers a production cost of $1.42 per gallon of biodiesel.