Wood pellet producer Enviva has received a permit to build a new facility in Alabama, US. The new $175 million (€157.9 million) facility will be located at the Port of Epes Industrial Park in Sumter County.
Enviva expects the new wood pellet production plant to be the next facility in its strategic asset cluster in the Gulf region, which is expected to include other plants in Mississippi and Alabama, as well as its deep-water marine terminal in the Port of Pascagoula.
The Sumter County plant is expected to produce around 1,150,000 metric tonnes of wood pellets annually. It will initially be constructed to produce 700,000 metric tonnes per year.
The company hopes to be ready to build in early 2020, subject to final investment approval. The construction should take around 15-18 months.
One built, the pellets produced at the Epes plant are expected to be transported by barge along the Tennessee-Tombigbee River to Enviva’s planned marine terminal in Mississippi, where they would be exported to Europe and Asia.