Whether a plant is in operation or cold idle; we have the knowledge and know how when it comes to protecting and maintaining plant assets. Energetix has firsthand experience with bank foreclosed biofuel plants, plants in receivership, and environmentally distressed facilities. Our core management group is capable of consulting, managing and supporting bank owned and receiver controlled plant assets.

Energetix has supported the acquisition and development of ethanol and biodiesel assets for AgStar and Cobank owned facilities in the Midwest. We've provided expert advice and professional analyses on a wide range of business, technical, environmental and operational issues. Our scope of analyses included:

• Assess environmental issues. Coordinate environmental cleanup and rehabilitation in accordance with state and federal environmental laws and regulations.
• Staff facility or maintain and manage currently employed staff.
• Evaluate facility permits, asses and modify necessary guidelines set forth in the National Polution Discharge System Permit.
• Evaluate and hold any current air and/or water permits. Coordinate subcontractors and environmental consultants.
• Develop preventative maintenance practices, check lists, and cold idle procedures.
• Provide site security. Provide tours to potential buyers and investors.
• Assist with facility contracts, drawings, agreements, land acquisitions, and easements.
• Provide support during the sale of the facility; including but not limited to, start up costs, negotiations, asset inventory, and develop and implement an essentials list to prepare the facility for an expedited start-up.

Energetix provides expert biofuel facility preservation and layup programs. The programs are designed to maintain and/or improve the facility's value. We have developed and implemented comprehensive preservation programs for entire biofuel production facilities and process equipment including pumps, chillers, boilers, and auxiliary equipment that are compliant with or exceed the manufacturer's preservation guidelines.

Our biofuel facility preservation program will be custom tailored to fit the situation. Our programs are typically turn-key and include the following services:

• Personnel management
  • Energetix will provide personnel or utilize existing staff
• Environmental Health and Safety (EHS)
  • EHS programs will be implemented or maintained if exist
• Maintain permit integrity and compliance with regards to air and water
• Perform required reporting to state and federal agencies where applicable
• Site security
• Develop and maintain a customized maintenance program to ensure equipment integrity during periods of cold idle
  • Create a master equipment list based on a physical inventory and as-found condition assessment of all equipment
  • Develop a preservation program database, preservation tasks and preventative maintenance schedules.
  • Develop a quality control plan to assure the effectiveness of the preservation program.
• Budget preparation and implementation
• Reporting to owners as requested
• Develop and maintain and all-encompassing cold idle program to assure the perspective owners that their facility is prepared for an expedited start- up, re-start or sale

Energetix provides confidence and peace of mind when it comes to facility asset preservation management. Having worked in the biofuel industry for many years we are capable of providing solutions for the protection of your assets. Through our in-house programs and reliable partners we are able to provide solutions, prevent problems, and provide suitable countermeasures for facility assets quickly.

Energetix personnel are experienced in business and facility management practices. We have managed biofuel plant operations ranging from a wide variety of process designs, capacities and technologies. We have managed facilities starting with the beginning phases of project development, fund raising (both equity and finance), construction and start-up. During these phases, we have successfully managed full scale construction projects within budget, hired and trained management personnel and staff. We have also developed and implemented permanent procedures for the long term success of the business in all areas. We recognize the importance of our clients having well trained and qualified biofuel plant operations and management staff and provide the following related services:

• Development of plant specific operations and management procedures.
• Development of plant specific training and qualifications programs.
• Development of Environmental Health and Safety Programs and Compliance
• Development of Quality Assurance and Quality Control Programs and Procedures
• Supplemental Operations and Management personnel.

Experience is essential to providing optimal efficiency reviews and operationalsupport. Energetix consultants have decades of experience in all relevant biofuel technology and plant process operations. This experience includes reviewing, optimizing and supporting:

Process Evaluations Energy Efficiencies Procedure Review Front-end Fermentation Review and Optimization Distillation, Dehydration and Evaporation Review and Optimization Energy Center Review and Optimization

Utility Review and Optimization Operations Training Process safety management reviews Yield analysis Quality control and quality assurance reviews Lab Set-up and Support

Through its experience, Energetix offers unique capabilities and value for reviewing and supporting plant process changes in all types of operating environments.

Energetix is capable of finding the right combination of people, process, and technology by bringing them together to enhance the productivity and value of any biofuel operation while driving down the cost of routine operations to a desired level. The end result is that resources previously needed to manage operational tasks can be redirected to new, high value initiatives that bring additional capabilities to the organization.

Energetix is an expert in providing the consulting, and expertise required to review and optimize your biofuel facility.

Energetix provides independent audit type services that are custom tailored to each facility to effectively evaluate biofuel facilities and report problems or risks before those issues escalate into financial losses to our clients. Our inspection teams have extensive biofuel industry experience and are always successful in identifying items that have been overlooked or could surface later to jeopardize budgets, schedules or performance. We have worked on behalf our clients to evaluate the following:

• Business Economics

  including capital cost analysis, base operating cost estimate, economic evaluation model, fuel and operating cost impact analysis for various operating scenarios, benchmarking to other projects and other similar analyses.

• General Management

  including staffing levels and organization, management practices and systems and maintenance management practices and systems.

• Contracts

  including the review and/or re-negotiation of off take agreements, fuel supply agreements, operation agreements and maintenance agreements.

• Project Technical Issues

  including general project condition, specific areas of potential or current equipment problems, operating regime, fuel selection and emissions, equipment or spare parts redundancy or needs, and environmental issues.

• Efficiency & Operation Review

  including process evaluations, energy flows, energy efficiencies, process safety management reviews, yield analysis and quality control and quality assurance reviews. Let Energetix evaluate your plant, help identify key areas of improvement, and help increase your bottom line. Our goal is to minimize your inputs while maximizing your outputs.

Energetix has the talent, technology, and industry know-how to make immediate and significant efficiency contributions to the biofuel process. We understand the process technologies, energy needs, and environmental requirements in the biofuel industry. We have worked with major ethanol facilities and small technology developers alike to support program planning and to document technology success, with the common goal of bringing our biofuel clients one step closer to their process and business management goals. Energetix provides a wide range of evaluation, road mapping, planning, analysis, partnership development, and communications services to support business and energy efficiency efforts in your plant.

Continuous improvement and optimization of existing business and operation processes are essential to the bottom line for every biofuel facility, and can have significant impact on the topline as well. Energetix offers consulting services for assessing and evaluating existing business and operation processes and provides recommendations for significant improvements in process optimization.

Experience is essential to providing optimal business and operations process evaluations. Energetix consultants have decades of experience in all relevant biofuel technology and plant process areas, along with the expertise in current business tools for documenting and evaluating procedure processes. Through its experience, Energetix offers a unique capability and value for documenting and managing process changes in all types of operating environments.

Process Optimization Services

Energetix can provide a variety of services to meet a biofuel manufactures needs, even customized to the particular process technology or service. A typical service engagement consists of distinct activities and deliverables, each of which is well defined and targeted for the facilities requirements and objectives. The depth of the evaluation is defined by our clients and can range from just a few days for a rapid or targeted assessment to months for a comprehensive business and operations process and system evaluation with specific change recommendations.

A typical evaluation included the following three phases:

Discover -

Energetix provides subject matter experts in specific process and system areas to evaluate existing information, including documentation, live interviews, observation of process execution and all other means of gathering relevant information.

Analyze -

The full set of inefficiencies are evaluated against the processes, analyzed to determine different types of issues including "Quick Hits" - problems that can be solved quickly and independently, "Process Fixes" - issues that can be improved or eliminated by changing the existing process, and "Complex Issues" - those problems that are possibly a combination of process and system issues or perhaps related to the technology and offered services. Industry data is also used and introduced in this phase to provide comparison for the analysis and to serve as a benchmark for what is average, what is best-in-class, and what is optimal.

Recommend -

Experienced ethanol and biofuel managers and executives with 50+ years of collective experience are involved in the recommended steps to offer the best insights and guidance for applying the analysis to different available options for rectifying concerns. Recommendations are provided in the context of high-level plans and Return on Investment evaluations to allow our clients to quickly decide and act on the most valuable activities, minimize the time and maximize the return.

Transition -

Although typically an optional phase of our business and operations process evaluation, Energetix is an expert in providing the consulting, management, and expertise required to implement the recommendations - in many cases providing our clients with an option to gain maximum value from Energetix's resources with minimal impact to existing operations.

Energetix provides plant start-up services to assist you with the commissioning, decommissioning or re-commissioning of your biofuel plant. Energetix provides expert commissioning program development and oversight services to a diverse renewable fuel industry clientele. We possess a wealth of recent biofuel plant commissioning experience; Energetix and its principals have managed or served in leadership roles in more than 25 startups totaling more than 1.5 billion gallons per year in biofuel production. Drawing on our considerable knowledge of lessons-learned and best practices, we are uniquely positioned to assist our clients in achieving a safe, on time, and cost-effective plant startup.

Because of our extensive capabilities and sensitivity to our client's needs, Energetix is able to tailor its services to facilitate the commissioning of any biofuel plant during any project phase. We offer a broad range of both front-end and on-site services including:

• Review and Summarize Contract Deliverables

  precisely defining the client's commissioning scope of work and establishing scope boundaries between the various project entities.

• Program Development

  producing a Commissioning Manual with administrative and technical guidelines for the facility. This includes, among other things, defining startup systems by scoping P&ID's and one-line drawings, developing a detailed commissioning schedule, and reviewing design drawings for system operability.

• On-site Commissioning Management

  coordinating and directing site commissioning activities beginning with the sequential release of systems from construction through plant acceptance. We also serve as the startup coordinator entity for our owner clients for turnover of projects from EPC contractors at plant acceptance.

• Develop Commissioning Cost Controls and Reporting

  including any required sub- contracts, service agreements, commodity procurement, change management and back charge guidelines, cost codes, and reporting protocols. Costs are tracked and controlled to the approved estimate.

• Perform Compliance Gap Analysis

  ensuring that the planned testing regime accommodates all relevant local, state, and federal regulatory requirements.

• Re-Commissioning

  evaluating, planning, and executing the restart of mothballed or partially completed plants.

Our process advisors begin by inspecting your equipment in the field to evaluate compliance with OEM specifications, then assist you to prepare unit-specific commissioning, operating and safety procedures. Our advisors monitor fermentation and distillation loadings, pre-commissioning, instrument loop checking, and start-up operations.

Our advisor team will guide your personnel through plant operations, aid them in optimizing plant performance, conduct plant demonstration tests, and finally, document your plant's initial performance.