THUNDER BAY – For a decade or more industry leaders have been trumpeting bio-chemicals as a potential savior for the forest sector.
It’s a giant step closer today.
On Thursday FPInnovations announced it will build a fully functioning bio-refinery plant in Thunder Bay, paid for in part by $4.5 million from the province and $3.5 million from Resolute Forest Products, who will host the facility.
To start, the company’s president and CEO Pierre Lapointe, the venture will employ between five to 10 people.
But once the research and development stage is complete, a much bigger production facility could be calling the city home, providing many more jobs.
“Today, what we have announced is the fact that we will able to produce in Thunder Bay two new products, the sugar stream C5 and C6, which could be used by the petrochemical industry in Sarnia, Ont., and h-lignan, which is the second product which could be used in animal feed stock and … for mine tailings and wastewater treatment,” Lapointe said.
The pilot plant is just the beginning for FPInnovations, a not-for-profit charged by the federal government to find solutions for the forest industry.
The goal is to produce two tonnes of each product per day.
“Once we have secured the update of the process, then we’ll go to the commercial phase and then we’re talking about a few hundred million and a bigger number of jobs,” Lapointe said.
Thunder Bay is a natural location, he added.
“You have a lot of advantages,” he said.
Resolute is already using the organization’s technology, and the city’s geographic location makes it ideal to ship the finished product to Sarnia via the Great Lakes.
“It’s the perfect mix of quality and opportunity,” Lapointe said.
Minister of Municipal Affairs Bill Mauro, who oversaw the forestry profile in his previous cabinet assignment, said the province realized early on during last decade’s forestry collapse that industry likely wasn’t going to rebound as it had in the past. They knew diversification was the key.
It’s just taken time to get there, Mauro said.
“We realized we had to do something different, so that we could get other value-added products out of forestry biomass,” he said.
His Liberal colleague, Minister of Northern Development and Mines Michael Gravelle, said the pilot plant has plenty of potential to grow and also to attract other innovators and companies to Thunder Bay.
“We can grow and build with innovation such as this. Innovation is the key. They’ve got people waiting for the product and that’s pretty exciting,” Gravelle said.
Lakehead University will also partner in the project.
