Xethanol Corp. update

Xethanol Corp. is trying to unload a former pharmaceutical plant in Georgia that had been the centerpiece of its plan to turn wood chips, paper pulp and other organic waste into ethanol.

The Augusta Chronicle reported last week that Xethanol (AMEX: XNL) told workers who have been tending the property that it was for sale. When Xethanol and a joint venture partner bought the idled plant in August 2006, they said it would be retrofitted to produce 50 million gallons of ethanol a year, and would employ as many as 100 people.

In the wake of the news, the Chronicle’s business editor wrote this column, which we thought our readers might be interested in seeing.

We believe the information that Sharesleuth uncovers about companies like Xethanol is important not only to investors, but to the communities those companies involve in their ventures. They, too, must assess the risks.

Xethanol reported in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing in November that it had sold its mothballed ethanol plant in Hopkinton, Iowa for $500,000. It once billed that plant as its “research and development testbed.’’

The company also disclosed that it had sold 47 acres of undeveloped land in Blairstown, Iowa, the home of its only operating ethanol plant. And Xethanol said that it was talking to a potential buyer for its property in Spring Hope, N.C. The company had said it would convert the former fiberboard plant there into a facility that would produce 35 million gallons of ethanol a year.