Doubling down Groupe Savoie doubles domestic pellet production By Andrew Snook W hen Groupe Savoie opened its wood pellet plant in Saint-Quentin, N.B., five years ago, the company was producing 42,000 tonnes of wood pellets per year. Ap-proximately 90 per cent of that production was being shipped overseas for industrial use in the U.K. Since the inception of the plant, the European industrial grade pellet market has continued to be Groupe Savoie’s biggest customer. However, this year’s long, harsh winter created a shortage of residential grade domestic pellets for heating applications and left homeowners across New Bruns-wick scrambling for pellets. This left some homeowners frustrated at the fact that some companies were continuing to generate pellets to fulfill contracts overseas, while residents were experiencing a shortage on the domestic side of the business. This is despite the fact that pellet companies’ overseas contracts would have been negotiated long before one could know that a harsh winter was approaching and that ash contents for residential grade pellets in Canada differ from industrial grade pellets being shipped overseas. In an effort to fill the gap and help avoid future shortages close to home, Groupe Savoie decided to dedicate a percentage of its industrial production to producing more residential grade pellets. The company will now have a fifty-fifty split between domestic pellet production and exported industrial pellets. On a typical day, the plant runs seven days a week, 24 hours a day. The company currently produces 70,000 tonnes of pellets annually for use do-mestically and overseas, and plans to produce an additional 20,000 tonnes, or more, after the plant completes the installation of its new burner. The company is almost completely self-sufficient with its raw materials – sawmill and harvesting residuals. “We only purchase a small amount of softwood sawdust,” says Jonathan Levesque, Groupe Savoie’s vice-president of marketing and development. The plant was shut down this past June for the installation of a new Wellons FEI burner, which can generate upwards of 55 million BTUs of heat. LEFT MAIN: Groupe Savoie’s vice-president of marketing and development, Jonathan Levesque, shows a group of conference attendees around his company’s pellet plant operations in Saint-Quentin, N.B. BOTTOM LEFT: To assist with the company’s domestic market, Groupe Savoie invested in a Western Star 15-ton capacity, vacuum delivery truck for delivering pellets across the province. BOTTOM RIGHT: The plant currently produces 70,000 tonnes of pellets annually for use domesti-cally and overseas with plans to produce an additional 20,000 tonnes. Canadian BIOMASS 11
Canadian Biomass July August 2015: Page 11
