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On March 16, CSX Transportation introduced Ethanol Express Delivery (EthX), a rail-to-vessel service designed to link Midwest ethanol producers with Northeast consumers.

CSXT plans to move large quantities of ethanol on unit trains from midwestern cities to Albany, N.Y., where barges would carry the fuel down the Hudson River to New York and New England markets.

"With the growing demand for ethanol in the Northeast, and a lack of
pipeline infrastructure from the Midwest, CSXT set out to fill the
distribution void by building a virtual pipeline," said David Kennedy,
CSXT manager of business development, Agricultural Products Group, in a prepared statement, adding that the railroad is targeting ethanol suppliers that haven't traditionally used rail.

The Class I recently landed Aventine Renewable Energy Inc. as EthX's first customer. The company plans to ship ethanol to Albany by rail from Aurora, S.D., where VeraSun Energy's two-month-old plant is expected to produce 100 million gallons of ethanol annually — about 25 percent of Northeast consumers' projected 2004 volume.