The staff completed the first concrete pouring of the cooler foundation at the Skeena BioEnergy plant.
At Terrace, North Carolina, a new pellet plant is being formed, and companies and suppliers are building it with a new industry environmental compliance standard. 'This will be Prodesa's first complete system installation in BC. We hope this will be our model project, and we hope it sets a high standard for environmental compliance,” said Roger Keery, vice president of Skeena Sawmills.
Skeena BioEnergy is the name of a new $20 million pellet plant next to Skeena Sawmills. Construction begins in June and is expected to be completed in December 2018 and will be available in January 2019.
'We spent four years researching various alternatives,' said Kerry. 'We studied a number of different techniques to reuse sawmill residues. We studied bio-naphtha and organisms. Ethanol, we also studied the production of biogas in a closed power generation system.'
Skeena BioEnergy is being built in an existing building that used to be a decorative panel company. Skeena Sawmills owns the site and buildings. It operates a large sawmill in Terrace, and the demand for neighboring pellet plants is obvious.
'We need to add value to our sawmill waste - sawdust and waste wood,' Keery said. 'We are currently unable to recover any value from our shavings, sawdust or waste wood, our pellet business transforms it into a company Source of income. '
Waste is currently divided into two processes. The bark is partially landfilled, and the white wood is sold to the pellet manufacturer. Keery says it is a round trip for about 12 hours.
Skeena BioEnergy is based on the consumption of all remaining materials from Skeena Sawmills, and Skeena Sawmills will supply raw materials to the pellet plant. The plant will produce pellets of all residues, including shavings, sawdust, waste wood and bark.
According to Keery, Skeena BioEnergy has the potential to receive raw materials from nearby sawmills or biomass harvesters, depending on the plant's capacity.
'The plant has designed additional capabilities to get materials from other manufacturers, but this will depend on the plant's ability to operate,' Keery said.
Keery explained that the need to operate Skeena BioEnergy under different names is also a well-thought-out decision. 'We think the particle business is very different from our sawmill business,' he said. 'We may also have partners in the business at some point. , so it allows us to handle partnerships in a larger context without the sawmill and timber business.'
Keery said that there are many potential customers in the Asian market, but ultimately it is not yet determined who the customer is.
'Our focus is on Asia. This is the focus of our timber business, naturally the focus of our pellet business, so we are looking for Asian countries - Japan, Korea and potential Chinese customers, although due to regulatory restrictions, this is currently not possible ', Keery explained.
After the project is completed, Skeena BioEnergy will employ 12-15 employees and is expected to produce 75,000 tons of pellets per year. There are currently six contract employees working on the construction site.
'We have a good group of people at work,' said Kerry. 'Our main civil and mechanical contractor is Salem Contracting, and we believe they are one of the best companies in the industry.'
Prodesa is the equipment supplier chosen by Skeena BioEnergy for the entire project.
'We have studied a lot of suppliers. We chose Prodesa because of their experience in granulation, the quality of the equipment and the ability to provide a complete design system,' said Keery. Skeena and Prodesa aim to be a showcase for industry environmental compliance. platform.
According to Keery, Skeena BioEnergy's plant emissions will be tightly controlled, and safety is a top priority for investing in fire detection systems, explosion protection and control systems.
Controlling plant emissions involves two technologies. Keery explained that the first is wood drying technology, a belt drying system that uses natural gas to burn. Kerry says the technology's emissions test results are excellent.
Keery explained that the second technique is to control the dust emissions from various dust generation points in the plant. He said that they are all collected in the same place and passed through a filtering device, so the emissions will be filtered through the air filtration system.
'This is the only two air emissions in the factory, both of which are well controlled, and emissions are orders of magnitude lower than the standards associated with general sawmill operations,' Keery said.
The investments in the various systems in the plant come from different suppliers. As mentioned above, Prodesa is providing the plant with the main equipment, each with its own fire and explosion protection system. This includes dryers, hammer mills, pellet coolers and Storage silos, etc.
A glimpse of the cool basement of Skeena BioEnergy, the basic work is being done. The dust control system provided by SonicAire controls the dust in the air in the factory.
Skeena BioEnergy will be equipped with a belt dryer, two feed lines, three granulators and a cooling tower.
'We use state-of-the-art technology to design safety systems and dust control in factories,' Keery said. 'We designed the factory to allow us to mix different types of input materials, so the feed system allows us to control our raw materials in a controlled manner. Mix different products. '
Keery explained that the process consists of two separate feed systems that are individually controlled to mix the materials in the feed. 'We have a dual feed system that can be controlled to make the plant operate. Can mix two raw materials in a controlled ratio,' he said.
Although Skeena BioEnergy is located near the railway line, all products will be transported by truck. Keery said that the railway can be selected, but conversion is required because the factory cannot use the railway immediately.
Keery said that Skeena BioEnergy currently has no plans to invest in bagged pellet systems, but is interested in considering the domestic market and may be able to obtain the bulk pellet market locally.
'The local market is very attractive to us. Although it is small, we think it is an important part of the community, the community can use our products,' he said. 'So, we are interested in considering how to do this, But have not decided yet. '
'This may be the most important project of our company,' Keery said. 'Our company has been working hard to solve the residual problems of the sawmill and find the value of the residue, so this project has a lot of exciting things. This is good for Skeena. Sawmills is on a successful project. '
Skeena Sawmills and Skeena BioEnergy are owned by Roc Holdings, which was launched in 2012 by Chinese immigrant Teddy Cui. Skeena Sawmills was purchased from West Fraser Timber in the same year and started operating in 2013 with new private ownership.
The Skeena BioEnergy project is also fully privately funded through its ownership.
