Highland Pellets' Arkansas Fuel Pellet Mill to Begin Line 1 Testing Soon

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Highland Pellet LLC (Boston, Massachusetts) is preparing to begin testing the initial fuel pellet production line at its new fuel pellet production mill located in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Highland began mobilizing heavy dirt moving and excavation equipment to the Jefferson County Industrial Park in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, to pick up where the company left off in 2014 after work stoppage appeared to stall the development in early 2016.

Permission for the title permit was rejected and had to be re-filed, causing a year's delay. The new permit application was approved in January 2015, and after some tweaking of the design and engineering plans and securing fuel off-take agreements, the project moved into construction in early 2016.

With the delays and re-engineering, the project's capital costs have risen to $143 million versus the original estimate of $130 million to construct the mill and install the first production line. Highland placed an order for the equipment with Astec Industries Incorporated (NASDAQ: ASTE) (Chattanooga, Tennessee) for the turn-key installation of the first production line equipment.

Astec will complete the installation of the 150,000-ton-per-year pellet production line by this month. Installation of the three additional 150,000-ton-per-year lines is expected grow the production capacity of the mill to 600,000 tons per year over the course of the 2017 calendar year, representing a total investment of more than $200 million to $250 million. The high-quality fuel pellets will receive the ENOPlus A1 quality seal, which meets the European ISO 17225-2 standard for pellets.

General contractor Wagner Construction (International Falls, Minnesota), whose president, Dennis Wagner, also sits on the advisory board for Highland, is assisting Astec with construction of the plant.

The finished pellets will be transported via Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE:NSC) (Norfolk, Virginia) rail to marine export terminals in the Southeast U.S. to Europe to the Drax biomass power plant in the United Kingdom under a 10-year supply agreement. Highland is looking into additional fuel pellet mill capacity and has future plans to construct new mills in Georgia, Mississippi and a second mill in Arkansas.

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