WBaug20pgs_SS.qxp_Wood Bioenergy Magazine 7/7/20 10:43 AM Page 8
■ in the news Enviva Purchases Georgia Biomass Enviva Partners is purchasing a wood pellet production plant (known as Georgia Biomass) in Waycross, Ga. with associated export terminal capacity in Savannah, Ga. from innogy SE. The purchase price is $175 million (US). In operation since 2011, the Georgia Biomass plant exceeded 800,000 metric tons in annual production last year. The closing of the transaction is subject to antitrust clearance— both in the UK and in the U.S. The closing is planned for the third quarter of 2020. Christoph Radke, COO Renewables at innogy SE, comments, “We are selling our U.S. pellet production facility as a result of a strategic realignment process that was decided already some years ago. This strategic realignment led to the decision that biomass was no longer considered a core business activity. As part of this process, we have already sold three biomass-fired power stations and a pellet production facility in Germany in addition to a biomass asset in Italy. The pellet plant in Waycross is the last biomass asset in our portfolio. We are convinced that Georgia Biomass would be better placed in a company which has pellet production as one of its key strategic pillars.” Fabian Gaus, Managing Director of Georgia Biomass LLC, adds: “I’d like to take the opportunity to express my sincere thanks to our employees. Georgia Biomass exceeded 800,000 metric tons in annual production in 2019 and ended the previous year with setting benchmarks not only in production, but also in quality, sales and profitability. In doing so we have created a perfect basis for the future of the company under the umbrella of Enviva.” As part of the Georgia Biomass acquisition, Enviva will acquire long-term, take-or-pay off-take contracts with an existing partner-
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ship customer for annual deliveries of approximately 500,000 MTPY through 2024. The Waycross plant exports its wood pellets through a terminal at the Port of Savannah under a long-term terminal lease and associated services agreement. Enviva Partners also has agreed to purchase Enviva Pellets Greenwood Holdings II, LLC, which, through its wholly owned subsidiaries, owns a wood pellet production plant in Greenwood, SC from its sponsor for cash consideration of $132 million and the assumption of a $40 million third-party promissory note. The Greenwood plant has been operating since 2016 and its wood pellets are exported through the partnership’s terminal at the Port of Wilmington, NC. The partnership plans to invest $28 million to expand the Greenwood plant’s production capacity to 600,000 MTPY by the end of 2021. The partnership expects the Greenwood acquisition to close on or about July 1, 2020. In connection with the Greenwood acquisition, Enviva Partners will be assigned five long-term, take-or-pay off-take contracts with Japanese counterparties that have maturities between 2031 and 2041, aggregate annual deliveries of 1.4 million metric tons per year. “The Greenwood and Georgia Biomass acquisitions are fundamentally transformative for Enviva’s scale and diversification,” says John Keppler, Chairman and CEO of Enviva. “Not only are we increasing Enviva’s fully contracted production capacity by 35 percent, but we are doing so in new fiber baskets, with new deep-water terminal infrastructure, and with new customers under new long-term, take-or-pay off-take contracts that we expect will enable us to continue our track record of generating durable cash flows and growing our distributions sustainably well into the future.” Prior to the two acquisitions, Enviva Partners owned and operated seven plants with a combined production capacity of 3.5 million
Georgia Biomass produced more than 800,000 metric tons in 2019.
metric tons of wood pellets per year in Virginia, North Carolina, Mississippi and Florida. In addition, Enviva exported wood pellets through its marine terminals at the Port of Chesapeake, Va. and the Port of Wilmington, and from third-party marine terminals in Mobile, Ala. and Panama City, Fla. The two acquisitions will add two operating plants with a combined production capacity of 1.4 million metric tons of wood pellets per year, and third-party marine terminal in Savannah.
4FRI: Election Antics With Phase 2 Pending An election year shuffling of candidates for Arizona’s Corporation Commission (ACC) may bring new life to the near-derailed 4 Forests Restoration Initiative (4FRI) that’s seeking to restore healthy conditions across 2.4 million acres on four national forests. Just last year the five-member ACC voted down a proposal to require state utilities to purchase up to 90MW of biomass-fired power, a critical market expansion for the biomass and brush material produced by each individual forest restoration project. However, this past spring a state court judge threw multiple candidates off the ACC ballot due to irregularities in signature-gathering, including an incumbent. The two members not facing election are split on the biomass proposal. Three seats are open, so if two candidates who support the mandate are elected, the biomass utilization effort stands a better
Wood Bioenergy / August 2020
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