An ethanol plant along the Columbia River is in line to ship domestic crude oil to points on the West Coast or to Asia.

The Longview Daily News reports that the Columbia Pacific Bio-Refinery plans to receive rail shipments of light crude oil and ethanol at the plant near Clatskanie and put them on ocean-going barges.

The refinery isn’t saying specifically where the products are coming from, where they are going or how much volume is expected. A manager said that shipping oil only recently became potentially profitable.

The plant once employed 72 workers making ethanol but was down to 20 as of summer. It was hurt when prices for the gasoline additive fell, and prices for the corn used to make it rose.

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Information from: The Daily News, http://www.tdn.com

This story originally appeared on Oregon Public Broadcasting.