Pellet Profile Quebec’s newest pellet plant, La Granaudière, is set to come online after six years By Ellen Cools A community project The La Granaudière plant is currently under construction. Photo courtesy Yves Crits. wo-and-a-half hours north of Montreal, up in Saint-Michel-des-Saints, Que., a new wood pellet plant is quietly coming online. The plant, La Granaudière, has been six years in the making, CEO Yves Crits explains. Saint-Michel-des-Saints is a small village of about 2,500 people, with two main industries: forestry and tourism. In the past, it was home to logging operations, a sawmill and an oriented strand board (OSB) plant. But in 2006, Louisiana-Pacific (LP) shut down the local sawmill and OSB plant due to high wood and transportation costs, as well as T a decline in OSB prices at the time. This was a big blow to the village, which is situated near a public forest with an annual allowable cut of 700,000-800,000 cubic metres, Crits says. However, in 2014, Crits came to the village to open a sugar shack and was introduced to the mayor, who had worked for Louisiana-Pacific as a logging contractor. They exchanged some ideas about how to bring the forestry industry back to life in the village. Crits, who has 20 years of experience working in the biomass industry, saw an opportunity. He conducted a feasibility study that proved there was potential for a wood pellet plant in Saint-Michel-des-Saints. From there, the work began. From 2014 to 2019, Crits worked on the logistics of the plant, securing a long-term offtake agreement with multinational utility Engie for the export of pellets to Europe. Financing closed at the end of August 2019, and construction of the plant began in September 2019, Crits says. The plant was originally scheduled to begin operating in September this year, but COVID-19 forced the temporary SUMMER 2020 10 Canadian BIOMASS
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