Liking a taste, buyer seeks rest of Biodiesel Solutions

The two product lines of Sparks-based Biodiesel Solutions Inc., split up just a few weeks ago, appear on their way to living under the same roof once again.

Tech Laboratories Inc., a Milwaukee company, says it has reached agreement on a non-binding letter of intent to purchase Biodiesel Solutions.

Terms weren't disclosed. Biodiesel Solutions is privately held; Tech Laboratories is publicly held with a stock that traded at 9 cents a share on the Over the Counter Bulletin Board last week.

Last month, Biodiesel's president and chief executive officer, Rudi Wiedemann, said the company sold a product line of home-sized biodiesel gear to a unit of Tech Laboratories.

But as those talks continued, Tech Laboratories CEO John King says his company became equally intrigued with a community-sized biodiesel product developed by Biodiesel Solutions.

The personal-sized product can produce 80 gallons of diesel fuel a day at a cost of about 85 cents a gallon. It's designed to use waste oil from restaurant deep-fat fryers.

The community-sized biodiesel makers, meanwhile, can produce about 1,000 gallons a day for users such as farm cooperatives or trucking companies. The feedstock for that system, King says, is expected to include algae, wood waste and non-food crops.

The feedstock, he says, is a particularly critical issue as other biodiesel systems rely on crops such as corn, and demand for their use as fuel pushes up food prices worldwide.

If a final deal can be hammered out, King says both product lines will continue to operate in the same facility. Earlier, Tech Laboratories planned to lease space for the personal-sized line and move it out of the Biodiesel Solutions facility at 1395 Greg St.

The planned acquisition of Biodiesel Solutions, King says, is part of a strategy by Tech Laboratories to roll up a number of small players in the biodiesel arena into a single larger company.