the biggest market for wood pellets. But exporting the pellets required another big investment – more than $15 million went into building a storage facility at the Port of Grande-Anse. “The Port of Quebec City used to have wood pellet silos, but unfortunately, they have been sold to a company that is now using them for grain. So, we were left with very few options. We looked at those different alternatives, and at some point, we decided to build our own storage infrastructure,” Sellin explains. “To do so, we looked at what port to utilize, and one of them became obvious – the Port of Grande-Anse, due to the distance and the fact that it was a port where we could establish our facility quickly.” Granule 777 came to an agreement with the port and built two 21,000 tonne-capacity storage domes, featuring “all the typical systems that you find in a port like elevators, conveyors and so on,” Sellin says. To get the pellet plant and the port A BIG INVESTMENT storage infrastructure up and running, the Now that the plant is up and running, the company had help from several government company plans to export the majority of ibce20-HALF-CABiomass.pdf 1 9/17/2019 12:48:24 PM agencies: Natural Resources Canada their pellets to the U.K., which Sellin says is energy, so it needs to be considered as if it was gasoline.” Consequently, Granule 777 is operating a modern, up-to-date process in terms of safety. The plant has all the safety systems that any pellet plant should have, Sellin says, such as spark detection, sprinklers, and heat sensors. The drying area is supervised by a Flamex spark detection system, while Firefly spark detection is used in the rest of the plant. Employees also follow very detailed procedures in terms of locking and tagging out equipment, Sellin says. “Most of the equipment and conveyors are not welded components, but bolted, so it reduces the risk of adding people doing hard work inside the belt line,” he says. “We spent a lot of time during the design phase of the pellet plant regarding safety measures, making sure that we are protecting the employees and the plant itself.” invested $15 million through its Forest Industry Transformation (IFIT) program, Canada Economic Development provided a $5 million repayable contribution, and the Quebec government invested $7 million. MOVING FORWARD Although Granule 777 only began operating in September of this year, Sellin says there haven’t been many hurdles so far. “I don’t expect to see any major issues, because all the manufacturers and the design of the plant are proven manufacturing equipment or a proven design,” he says. But the local team at Barrette-Chapais has never operated a pellet plant before, and Sellin acknowledges that there will be a learning curve. Properly training operators and ensuring they understand the importance of safety will be key. When winter comes in Chapais, they will also need to adjust to the impact of severe weather. Ultimately, Sellin is excited about the opportunities Granule 777 presents, not just as a new player in Canada’s wood pellet industry, but as a way to recover and use as much of the tree as possible. • C M Y CM MY CY CMY K C M Y CM MY CY CMY K GROW YOUR BUSINESS | BUILD RELATIONSHIPS BIOMASSCONFERENCE.COM 866-746-8385 [email protected] REGISTER TODAY Produced By: #IBCE20 -Follow Us: twitter.com/biomassmagazine FALL 2019 16 Canadian BIOMASS CBM_BBI intlconference_SeptOct19_CSA.indd 1 2019-09-19 11:09 AM
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