Squeezed by higher corn prices, a lower price for ethanol, and rising construction costs, the financial picture for Sacramento-based Pacific Ethanol slid in the fourth quarter of 2007, the company said March 31 in an earnings report conference call. Pacific suffered a net loss of $14.7 million in the fourth quarter, which pulled the ethanol maker’s net for the total year down to a loss of $14.4 million. The company lost $142 million in 2006. With an injection of $40 million through a preferred equity offering closed with Lyles United late last month, Pacific Ethanol president Neil Koehler predicted that 2008 holds a better outlook. “Our sales continue to grow,” said Koehler, which he attributed to “a robust renewable fuel standard,” high oil prices, and limits on increasing oil output. This year, Pacific hopes to complete an ethanol production plant under construction in Stockton, said chief financial officer Joseph Hansen, although it has experienced cost overruns. It is in the process of starting up a plant it recently completed in Burley, Idaho, he added, and has put on hold a facility it was planning in California’s Imperial Valley. Pacific produced and sold 64.9 million gallons of ethanol in 2007, compared with just 8.3 million gallons in 2006. It also sold ethanol made by other producers, bringing its total sales during 2007 to 190.6 million gallons, up from 101.7 million gallons in 2006. However, the company’s sales price for ethanol fell in 2007 to an average of $1.97/gallon from an average of $2.28/gallon in 2006. At the same time, the price of corn delivered was up to an average for last year of $4.26/bushel, compared to an average of $2.95/bushel in 2006. Reports from other ethanol makers show that Pacific’s problems last year were typical. In the long-run, however, Koehler projected that the market for ethanol would continue to rise due to the federal renewable fuels standard and the biofuel’s favorable price compared to petroleum-based fuel.