Highland Pellets' New Arkansas Fuel Pellet Mill Begins Pushing Dirt

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Highland Pellet LLC (Boston, Massachusetts) recently began mobilizing heavy dirt moving and excavation equipment to the Jefferson County Industrial Park in Pine Bluff, Arkansas to pick up where it left off in 2014 after work stoppage appeared to stall the development of the fuel pellet mill.

The title permit was rejected and had to be re-filed, and the project was delayed by about a year. 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 is now moving ahead full steam.

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. Highland is using Astec Industries Incorporated (NASDAQ:ASTE) (Chattanooga, Tennessee) for the turn-key installation of the production line equipment that has already begun to arrive onsite.

Astec will initially install one 150,000-ton-per-year pellet production line, and three additional lines, expected to be installed in the fall, will increase the production capacity of the mill to 600,000 tons per year. The high-quality fuel pellets will receive the ENOPlus A1 quality seal that meets the European ISO 17225-2 standard for pellets.

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

Initial limited pellet production is expected to start in late 2016, and all four production lines are expected to be completed by the third quarter of 2017. 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 European markets.

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