Pinnacle Renewable Energy has extended its industrial pellet contract with Mitsubishi Corp., to supply a biomass power plant in Japan with 80,000 to 90,000 tonnes a year beyond 2023.
Pinnacle has nine pellet production facilities, including at Williams Lake, Houston, Burns Lake and Hixon B.C., forest areas that were affected by fires and a pine beetle outbreak that spread across Western Canada. Pinnacle’s latest pellet mill at High Level, Alberta went into production in December.
With an export terminal at Prince Rupert, Pinnacle has become the second largest pellet producer in the world. The company appointed director and long-time Interfor president Duncan Davies as its CEO in November 2020.
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“We are excited to grow our business with our Asian customers,” Davies said in a statement Jan. 7. “We have developed a special relationship with Japan and we share their strong commitment to decarbonization and their replacement of fossil fuels with sustainable wood pellets.”
Pinnacle signed a similar contract in 2019 with Mitsui and Co., as Japan adds biomass and LNG production to compensate for lost nuclear power capacity since a devastating earthquake and tsunami destroyed its plant at Fukushima in 2011.
Pinnacle started in 1989, manufacturing pellet fuel from sawmill waste at Quesnel. It went public in 2018 and began a redevelopment of its Smithers facility, a new plant at Entwistle, Alberta, and majority stake in a pellet plant at Aliceville, Alabama.
@tomfletcherbc
tfletcher@blackpress.ca
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