Fuel made from crops is becoming more economical to produce, and a major local employer is considering building an ethanol plant on the Vicksburg harbor.

The head of operations for Ergon Inc., Lee Lampton, said Thursday that if his company decides to build the plant it would probably open in six to seven years.

Lampton made his comments at a meeting of the Vicksburg Rotary Club.

Ethanol is generally made from corn and can be used as a substitute or partial substitute for gasoline.

Beginning production of it here would mark Ergon’s first motor-fuel production in Warren County.

The company is based in Jackson and employs 661-plus people in Warren County, Lampton said.

Ergon has a refinery at the Vicksburg harbor. About 170 of its Warren County employees work there, turning mainly North Sea crude into specialty oils, including one used as a cooling agent in about three-fourths of the electrical transformers in the United States, Lampton said.

Ergon’s other lines of business in Warren County include transportation by truck and barge and related support and fabrication services.

Today’s price of crude oil on world markets, about $70 a barrel, contrasts with a price of $30 a barrel in 2002, Lampton said. He predicted that barring a major interruption in the world oil supply that price would stabilize at about $60 a barrel for the next several years. That price would keep per-gallon gasoline prices in the range of $2.50 to $2.75, possibly as low as $2.25 at times, he added.

Such a price, together with government subsidies for the production of biofuels, can make the production of ethanol here profitable, Lampton said.

If the market price for a barrel of crude oil were to drop to $30 a gallon and stay about that level, however, an investment in an ethanol-production facility would probably lose money, Lampton added.

&#8220The market changes so fast,” Lampton said. &#8220It’s tough to make that kind of investment.”

Lampton showed a timeline covering the years 1970 to 2005 and demonstrating how the price consumers pay for gasoline can be affected by major world events.

He also showed graphs illustrating the steady rise in the world’s demand for oil over that time, with the industrialization of China a major component in that growth.

&#8220In 2004 it really exploded,” Lampton said of the demand for oil from people in the world’s most-populous nation.

A reason for choosing the harbor as a location is that ethanol cannot be moved by pipeline but must be carried by barge, truck or rail, Lampton said.

President Bush advocated in this year’s State of the Union address increasing government subsidies targeted at increasing the production of biofuels.

Mississippi State University was already slated to receive a federal grant of about $11 million &#8220to look at all kinds of alternative energy,” said Dr. Mark Bricka, a former Vicksburg resident who is now a professor in MSU’s chemical-engineering department.

Biofuels can be made from plants other than corn. Soybeans, for example, are used to make biodiesel. Such a plant has recently begun operation in Jackson. Other biofuel ventures are under way in the state, including in Winona, Meridian and the Nettleton area, Bricka added.

Production of ethanol has grown sharply in recent years in the Midwest, mainly because of the abundant corn supply there, Bricka said. However, he said, the boom in production is taking the product to near its limit of profitability, even with subsidies.

Mississippi produces relatively little corn and what is produced is generally more-economically used as feed for cattle, Bricka said.

Research is being done at MSU, however, on other crops or trees that are grown or can be grown in the state. Among them are wood products and high-yield grasses such as switchgrass, Bricka said.