PACBIO TO PERMANENTLY CLOSE IN 2022, DRAX ACQUIRES CONTRACTS Pacific BioEnergy Corporation (PacBio) in December 2021 an-nounced that it had reached an agreement to assign some of its assets, including the wood pellet long-term sales contracts, to the Drax Group. Through the deal, Drax will get an additional 2.8 million tonnes of orders for sustainable biomass supply. These contracts are for delivery between 2022 and the mid-2030s, of which 0.3 Mt is for delivery in 2022. The total incre-mental revenues over the contract period are around $675 million. Drax aims to double sales of biomass to third parties to at least four Mt pa by 2030, developing its market presence in Asia and Europe, facilitated by the creation of new business development teams in Tokyo and London during 2022. The PacBio wood pellet plant in Prince George, B.C., will per-manently close this year, resulting in the loss of 55 direct jobs. PacBio CEO John Stirling stated, “Our company has been bat-tling several challenges for the past few years. Sawmill closures in the region have reduced the volume of available raw materials and increased their cost significantly. Forest fires, landslides, and floods have severely impacted our ability to transport our product by rail to the export terminal in North Vancouver. The impact has been a significant increase in operating costs. Our sales contracts have been sold to Pinnacle to mitigate the impact on our customers.” ALBIOMA ACQUIRES LA GRANAUDIÈRE WOOD PELLET PLANT IN QUEBEC Albioma has acquired the La Granaudière wood pellet production plant locat-ed in Quebec. This transaction will diversify the group’s sources of sustainable biomass supplies, supplementing the existing portfolio of contracts with inter-national suppliers. Ideally positioned to supply Albioma’s Caribbean power plants, La Granau-dière produces Sustainable Biomass Program (SBP)-certified pellets from wood waste or low-grade wood from certified sustainably managed forests. The transaction also includes a long-term agreement granting access to a 45,000-tonne pellet storage facility in the Port of Quebec, as well as raw ma-terial supply guarantees issued by Quebec’s Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Parks (MFFP). The plant, which has been out of service since July 2021, concomitantly with the receivership procedure, is due to be recommissioned in early 2022, with its nominal annual production capacity of 200,000 tonnes being achieved follow-ing some additional investments. Frédéric Moyne, Albioma’s chairman and CEO, said: “We extend a warm welcome to the staff at La Granaudière, as they bring their expertise to Al-bioma. Through this transaction, which will enable us to produce pellets to very strict sustainability requirements, Albioma is renewing and stepping up its commitment to the energy transition in overseas France. Supplementing locally-sourced biomass, to which priority will naturally be given in order to stimulate the circular economy, this diversified supply is essential, ensuring that we are able to continuously generate renewable energy in non-interconnected areas.” GREENLANE RENEWABLES TO SUPPLY BIOGAS UPGRADING SYSTEM TO VANCOUVER LANDFILL Greenlane Renewables Inc. announced in December that its wholly-owned sub-sidiary, Greenlane Biogas North America Ltd., has been awarded a $12.1 million contract by FortisBC Energy Inc. for the supply of a biogas upgrading system for a new project at the Vancouver landfill in B.C. Greenlane will supply its two-stage pressure swing adsorption (PSA) system to upgrade the landfill gas to clean, low-carbon renewable natural gas (RNG) for direct injection into FortisBC’s re-gional natural gas pipeline system. “Greenlane is proud to have been chosen by FortisBC as a key supplier in the City of Vancouver’s landfill gas-to-RNG project for the supply of our PSA biogas upgrading system,” said Brad Douville, president and CEO of Green-lane. Canadian BIOMASS 5
Canadian Biomass Winter 2022: Page 5
