2019 International Forest Industries Magazine December / January IFI Dec Jan 2019 Digital | Page 8

LOGGING & BIOMASS NEWS
Enviva announces firm off-take contracts with
Mitsubishi Corporation
Enviva announced recently that
the conditions precedent to
the organization’s previously
announced take-or-pay off-take
contracts to supply 630,000
metric tons per year (MTPY) of
wood pellets to a major Japanese
customer have been satisfied
and the agreements are now firm.
Under the terms of the agreements
with Mitsubishi Corporation, Enviva
will be the exclusive, long-term
imported biomass fuel supplier to
the Aioi Bioenergy Corporation, a
joint venture between Mitsubishi
Corporation Power Ltd. And Kansai
Electric Power Co, Inc., which is
converting an existing oil-fired
power plant to biomass.
Under these contracts, Enviva
Partners, LP (NYSE: EVA) (the
“Partnership”) and Enviva JV
Development Company, LLC, the
Partnership’s sponsor’s joint
venture with John Hancock Life
Insurance Company (U.S.A.), will
supply approximately 180,000
and 450,000 MTPY of wood
pellets, respectively. Deliveries
under the contracts are scheduled
to commence in late 2022 and
continue for at least 15 years.
“Our partners at Aioi Bioenergy
and Mitsubishi Corporation
are at the forefront of Japan’s
commitment to reducing the
impacts of climate change,” said
John Keppler, Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer of Enviva. “We
are privileged and honored to
be the sole source of supply of
sustainable wood pellet fuel to
the Aioi facility, one of the largest
dedicated biomass projects in
Japan announced to date, and we
look forward to helping Mitsubishi
and Kansai deliver on the promise
of renewable energy.”
Enviva Partners, LP and its
sponsor have now finalized long-
term off-take agreements with
counterparties in Japan that will
total 1.5 million MTPY by the end
of 2022.
About Enviva Partners, LP
Enviva Partners, LP (NYSE: EVA)
is a publicly traded master limited
partnership that aggregates a
natural resource, wood fiber, and
processes it into a transportable
form, wood pellets. The
Partnership sells a significant
majority of its wood pellets
through long-term, take-or-pay
agreements with creditworthy
customers in the United Kingdom
and Europe. The Partnership owns
and operates six plants with a
combined production capacity of
nearly three million metric tons of
wood pellets per year in Virginia,
North Carolina, Mississippi, and
Florida. In addition, the Partnership
exports wood pellets through its
owned marine terminal assets at
the Port of Chesapeake, Virginia,
and the Port of Wilmington,
North Carolina and from third-
party marine terminals in Mobile,
Alabama and Panama City, Florida.
About Enviva Holdings, LP
Enviva Holdings, LP is the world’s
largest producer of wood pellets, a
renewable and sustainable energy
source used to generate electricity
and heat. Through its subsidiaries,
Enviva Holdings, LP owns and
operates wood pellet processing
John Keppler, Chairman
and Chief Executive
Officer of Enviva
plants and deep-water export
terminals in the Southeastern
United States. They export pellets
primarily to power plants in the
United Kingdom and Europe that
previously were fueled by coal,
enabling them to reduce their
lifetime carbon footprint by about
80 percent. They make pellets
using sustainable practices that
protect Southern forests, and
employ about 800 people and
support many other businesses
in the rural South, where jobs
and economic opportunity are
sometimes scarce.
Professional Logging Contractors (PLC) of Maine issues
statement commending Nine Dragons investment in Maine mills
The Professional Logging
Contractors of Maine (PLC)
issued a statement last month
commending ND Paper LLC’s twin
announcements that it will invest
$111 million in its Rumford mill
over the next two years to increase
production capacity, and plans
to purchase the idled Old Town
bleached kraft pulp mill with an eye
toward restarting the facility and
producing unbleached softwood
pulp there.
The announcements by ND
Paper, the newly formed U.S.-
based subsidiary of Nine Dragons
Paper Holdings Ltd., are good
news for Maine’s loggers and
log truckers, according to Dana
Doran, Executive Director of the
Professional Logging Contractors
(PLC) of Maine.
“Maine loggers and log truckers
are highly skilled and hardworking,
but they need dependable markets
for Maine wood to succeed in
today’s global forest economy,”
Doran said. “These investments
by Nine Dragons will increase
demand for Maine wood, including
for softwood pulp which is very
welcome news in a state that
has lost a significant portion of
its softwood pulp market due to
mill closures in recent years. The
investments also represent a vote
of confidence in Maine’s workforce
and wood resource, and we
applaud ND Paper for recognizing
the value in both.”
The investments are timely
given the recent announcement by
FOR/Maine (Forest Opportunity
Roadmap), a coalition including the
PLC that is working to diversify the
state’s wood products businesses,
attract capital investments,
and develop greater economic
6 International Forest Industries | DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019
prosperity for communities
impacted by recent mill closures,
of an action plan to grow Maine’s
forest economy from the current
$8.5 billion (annual) to $12
billion by 2025. The investments
announced by ND Paper show that
this growth is not only possible,
but already beginning to occur,
Doran said.
Growth in wood markets means
Maine must now begin planning
for sustaining and expanding the
logger and trucker workforce in the
state, Doran said.
“These announcements by
ND Paper and recent investments
by other mill owners in Maine
including Sappi North America’s
$200 million upgrade at its
Somerset Mill in Skowhegan show
that Maine’s logging industry
and the wood it supplies to mills
like these remains vital to our
Dana Doran, executive
director of the
Professional Logging
Contractors of Maine
economy, and we need to start
investing in the future of that
industry, including the training of
future loggers and truckers, the
infrastructure they need to operate
effectively, and the business
climate they need to succeed.”