Today, Carbonics Capital Corp. announced that Great Plains Oil & Exploration, LLC will lease the company’s oilseed crush plant in Culbertson, Montana. Great Plains will use the facility in further development of their oilseed production program. The announcement follows the execution of an agreement between the companies.

Culbertson consists of oilseed handling, storage and processing infrastructure, including mechanical crush and vegetable oil refining equipment. It has over two million gallons of crude vegetable oil storage, over one million bushels of oilseed storage, and over four thousand tons of meal storage. Additional infrastructure includes a rail siding, truck and rail scales, and major U.S. highway frontage.

The lease presents a lucrative opportunity for Carbonics to expand its business enterprise. In 2008, Culbertson was unable to renew its working capital line of credit, and was therefore unable to complete its purchase of delivered oilseed inventory. After several months of difficult work, and the

Barring some dramatic – and unforeseen – news this week, expect investors to tread water until Thursday, when the government is expected to release the results of the bank stress tests it conducted on the 19 largest U.S. banks.

The stress-test results are expected to show that the 19 banks may have to raise between $100 billion to $150 billion – or even more – in new capital. Investors will cause the shares of the strong players to zoom northward, and will likely savage the shares of the weakest players.

“I can’t think of a time since I’ve been watching banks when there’s been so much uncertainty about the true value of a key set of assets,” Douglas Elliott, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, told Reuters.

The U.S. bank stress tests have transfixed the world financial markets for weeks, exacerbating the ongoing financial crisis – worsening the U.S.

Alex’s Notes: And the massive derivative mess continues to unwind.

The US has pushed so much paper into the markets, and the Fed has used up pretty much all its credit, so the next shoe to drop will be the bond markets.

More bailouts = direct bond issuances by the Federal Reserve. Scary territory.

When that bubble pops, look out, because you aint seen nothin’ yet.

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Bank of America Drops as Merrill May Need U.S. Aid By David Mildenberg

Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) — Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. bank by assets, plunged as much as 28 percent in New York trading on concern the company needs more government aid to absorb losses from the acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co.

The lender slid $2.26 to $7.94 at 10:52 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Bank of America told regulators in December it might abandon the takeover because of Merrill’s worse-than-expected results, and

This week is shaping up to be another active one on the bailout-and-financing front. First and foremost, Congress returns to work this week to consider a once-unthinkable proposal: Put up billions in taxpayer-backed loans so that Detroit’s “Big Three” can be saved. Expect a fight, however, as the bailout debate finally moves past banks to focus on General Motors Corp. (GM), Ford Motor Co. (F), and Chrysler Corp.

The situation is dire. GM is burning through cash at a pace that could mean bankruptcy, and all three players are struggling with high costs, weak vehicle sales, frozen credit lines and dwindling cash reserves calling into question whether they can survive much longer without government help. The answer, of course, is that they probably can’t.

But it’s here that the debate turns political, the Detroit Free Press reports. Congressional Democrats are pushing for some form