Enviva breaks ground on a new wood pellet plant in Mississippi, the US

Enviva breaks ground on huge wood pellet plant in George County, Mississippi. The new $140 million plant, which will directly create 90 full-time jobs, is estimated to indirectly create approximately 300 permanent jobs in the timber and transportation industries, as the company says in the press release received by Lesprom Network.

Bulldozers and heavy equipment have been on site for several weeks clearing and preparing the 125-acre site for underground utilities and foundation construction. More than 300 workers are expected to be hired during the plant’s construction. 

Enviva’s Chairman and CEO John Keppler explained that, during its first year in full production, this state-of-the-art plant is expected to produce approximately 700,000 metric tons of wood pellets.

Enviva’s Lucedale plant will be the first new large-scale consumer of low-grade southern pine trees and other soft-woods in the George County area in more than a decade. 

The Lucedale plant will help fill the gap left by a pullback in the forest products industry due to the closure of several large paper mills. The regional wood basket is growing faster than timber is being harvested. State projections indicate this trend will continue and the volume of timber is expected to increase every year even with the addition of Enviva’s Lucedale plant.

Construction of Enviva’s Lucedale plant is expected to take 15 to 18 months. A majority of the plant’s jobs will be filled approximately six months before the Lucedale plant begins operations. 

Enviva owns and operates eight plants strategically located in the southeastern United States which produce more than 3 million metric tons of wood pellets annually. It is the world’s largest producer of industrial grade wood pellets, which provide sustainable, low-carbon heat and power, replacing fossil fuels at power plants in Europe and Asia.