LUMBER PROCESSING NEWS
Skeena Sawmills to build pellet plant this summer
A Terrace-based pellet plant may soon become a reality as Skeena Sawmills moves forward on its plans to begin construction this summer reports Terrace Standard . The mill is reserving its official announcement on the estimated $ 20-million pellet plant until construction starts , but operations vice-president Roger Keery has confirmed the project is going ahead .
“ All the major equipment is ordered ,” Keery said , estimating that the company has already spent roughly $ 2 million on permits and equipment deposits . The pellet plant will be built inside the large blue warehouse on the west side of Skeena Sawmills .
Construction is expected to start this summer , with the equipment arriving in June or July . Keery hopes to have it up and running by the end of this fall . Terrace has had a long history of false starts around pellet plants in the past 10 years , with about six attempts in partnership with the Terrace mill .
“ No one has ever been in doubt that there needed to be one ,” said Keery . “ It ’ s just , how do you get to it ?” The pellet business is tough and there ’ s not a lot of money in it , he said , adding that it can draw a reasonable return if it ’ s managed well . But it ’ s not the economics that is driving the Skeena Sawmills project forward .
“ We ’ re building the pellet plant because it ’ s critical to our business ,” Keery said . “ We currently cannot operate our mill to its capacity because we haven ’ t got anywhere to dispose of the ( waste ) material we produce .” Keery says about 30 % of harvested wood is unusable for lumber products , and until now Skeena Sawmills has been loading it into the Kitsumkalum landfill . “ But it ’ s now full ,” said Keery of the landfill , “ so we can ’ t do that anymore .”
The sawmill is now stockpiling its waste wood in anticipation of what ’ s hoped to be the pellet plant ’ s fall startup . “ There ’ s still some uncertainty ( about the timeline ),” said Keery .
Roc Holdings Ltd , the Vancouver-based investment company that owns Skeena Sawmills , is starting up a separate company called Skeena Biofuels to build and operate the pellet plant , but Keery says they are considering potential partnerships .
The plant will produce an estimated 75,000 tonnes of pellets per year , and although buyers have not yet been identified Keery said there ’ s been a lot of interest from markets in China , Japan and Korea .
So far three people , Gary Johnston , Nathan Bond , and Randy Coombes are employed to get the Skeena Biofuels plant up and running . Once the plant is operational it will provide 12 to 15 jobs , probably two in management positions and 10-13 for operations and maintenance .
“ We ’ ve put a lot of effort into designing our plant to be a state of the art pellet plant in terms of its efficiency , its environmental impact , and its impact on the neighbourhood in terms of noise ,” said Keery . The belt dryer , as an example , will use natural gas instead of wood fuel to dry the pellets at a lower temperature , minimizing wood exhaust .
The complete line of equipment will come from Prodesa , a Spain-based pellet plant and biomass equipment manufacturing company .
Situated on the west side of Skeena Sawmills , the big blue warehouse on the left is the location of the planned Terrace pellet plant
International Forest Industries | APRIL / MAY 2018 21