Company Profile Rising expectations Rentech continues expansion as mills come online By Andrew Macklin I T ’ s amazing what can happen in 18 months. It seems like the anticipa-tion for the opening of Rentech’s pellet production plants in Atikokan, Ont., and Wawa, Ont., has been present for years but, in fact, it has just been 18 months since we learned of the newest player in the Canadian wood pellet industry. In early May of 2013, the announce-ment was made that California-based Rentech was purchasing Fulghum Fibres Inc. at a net purchase price of $112 mil-lion. The purchase included the Atikokan Renewable Fuels facility in Atikokan, once a particle board processing mill, as well as a former Weyerhauser OSB mill in Wawa. The deal also included logistics agreements with the Port of Quebec and CN Rail. When the announcement came that both facilities would be converted into wood pellet production plants for do-mestic and international distribution, it thrust the company, immediately, into the industry spotlight. A solid domestic customer base was already established, as Rentech inherited the OPG Atikokan supply agreement of 45,000 tonnes of wood pellets per year that was originally awarded to Atikokan Renewable Fuels. For international distribution, Rentech wasted little time in establishing a sup-ply contract with Drax in the U.K. once it got the green light to convert the former OSB mill to a pellet plant in November of 2013. Both contracts have led Rentech to pursue full capacity production at both plants as soon as is possible, ultimately producing upwards of 450,000 tonnes of wood pellets per year. Helping that push to international markets is the logistics chain established through the aforementioned agreements involving CN Rail and the Port of Que-A year ago, Rentech had little more than an old particle board processing mill and a nice sign in Atikokan, Ont. The plant is currently in its start-up phase. bec. The agreement with CN Rail will provide affordable transport of pellets from the remote northern Ontario com-munities to the Port of Quebec since, by car, Atikokan is over 2100km from the port, while the facility in Wawa is just 1500km. The agreement with the Port itself, and the subsequent partnership formed with Quebec Stevedoring, provides an ideal solution for shipping pellets to Drax and other potential European customers. The Port of Quebec facility is the largest bulk terminal in Eastern Canada, accord-ing to Steve Roberts, Rentech’s managing director – Canada. Roberts made a pre-sentation at the CanBio conference held in Thunder Bay in September. During his presentation, he discussed the scale of the port terminal in Quebec City-Wolf’s Cove. As part of the 15-year contract between Rentech and Quebec Stevedoring, who controls the handling facility, Rentech will have access to a ded-icated unloading, storage and vessel load-ing facility once construction is complete. That will include dome storage of an esti-mate volume of 75,000-80,000 tonnes of wood pellets, and will have a shiploader capacity of 1900MT/hr. The facility will NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2014 20 Canadian BIOMASS
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