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Pellet plant plans progress
BRYAN MEADOWS
10/27/2009

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Atikokan Renewable Fuels is gearing up for wood-pellet production in the new year.

The company plans to dismantle and ship equipment it has sold from the former Fibratech Manufacturing particle board plant next month in preparation for the arrival of new industrial pellet presses.

Atikokan Mayor Dennis Brown said the company told him that presses are to be delivered in January, with March pegged as the plant‘s production start date.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and AbitibiBowater are working with the company to ensure it has a sustainable fibre supply when the plant opens, Brown said Monday.

“Everything sounds good there,” he said.

Thunder Bay businessmen Ed Fukushima and Larry Levchak outlined their plans for the pellet plant last February.

They plan to invest an initial $15 million to convert the particle board plant to produce various conventional wood pellets, and the company‘s patented industrial high-energy wood pellet for use in industrial boilers. The plant would initially employ about 30 people.

Atikokan-area First Nations will participate as independent pellet manufacturers under agreement with Atikokan Renewable Fuels, and in the supply of biomass and wood fibre from area forests for pellet production.

Fukushima and Levchak are also principles in Thunder Bay-based Automation Now, MGM Electric and Mahon Electric, which employ more than 40 people.

They also announced that they will set up an assembly plant in Thunder Bay to manufacture pellet machines for Renewable Densified Fuels-USA and Canada, for domestic and export markets.

The company says pellets could be used as a direct replacement for coal-fired power plants, due to close in 2012 under a provincial government plan. Atikokan and Thunder Bay are both home to coal-fired plants.

If all goes according to plan, the Atikokan Renewable Fuels project would see more than 110 jobs created at the two plants and in spinoff employment, such as timber harvesting.
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