OMAHA — The Scoular Co. has acquired a 55-million gallon ethanol plant and adjoining 1.8-million bu shuttle train facility in Pratt, Kas., from Gateway Plant L.L.C. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The Pratt facility is located on the Union Pacific Railroad and is capable of loading 100-car shuttle trains of grain, dried distillers grains and ethanol, Scoular said. The facility will be incorporated into Scoular’s North American grain marketing network and brings the company’s total number of Kansas facilities to eight.

“Scoular is pleased to have taken yet another step to serve grain producers and end users in this area as well as to further expand our presence in the renewable fuels market,” said Chuck Elsea, chief executive officer at Scoular.

Mr. Elsea said Scoular expects the grain-handling portion of the facility to be ready to receive grain by April 1, and for the ethanol plant to be operational by late third quarter or early fourth quarter of this year.

In addition to the acquisition of the Pratt facility, Scoular said it plans to further expand its presence in the renewable fuels marketplace to include ethanol transloading with the opening of a new rail-to-truck ethanol transload facility in Ogden, Utah. The opening is expected to take place in the next two weeks.