SPIRITWOOD, N.D. — Officials this week plan to start construction on an ethanol plant in southeastern North Dakota that has been in the works for two years.

A ground-breaking ceremony is scheduled Friday for Minnesota-based Great River Energy’s Dakota Spirit AgEnergy plant at Spiritwood.

“As soon as the governor sets the shovel down the construction crews will hit the ground,” project engineer Rich Garman said.

The plant will cost about $150 million to build. Production is slated to begin in January 2015. The plant will employ about 36 people and will use about 23 million bushels of corn to produce about 65 million gallons of the alternative fuel each year.

The plant is to use excess steam power from Great River Energy’s Spiritwood Station. The combined heat and coal-fired power plant currently is idled due to lack of demand for electricity in Minnesota, though Garman said plans are to start it up in January 2015.

“We’ve already started the process of getting it ready to come online,” he said.