Varn Wood Products is going to build a wood pellet plant to go along with its sawmill in Hoboken, Ga.
George Varn Jr. said the decision was made last week to proceed with the new plant. Groundbreaking is expected in the spring with the opening in late 2012.
He said he’ll hire 12 to 14 employees. The sawmill employs 72.
Hoboken is about 40 miles north of Jacksonville.
The plant will make the pellets out of pine byproducts from the sawmill. It’s being designed to produce 80,000 tons of pellets a year but will be expandable to 120,000 tons a year if needed.
Some of the pellets will be sold in the United States as animal litter, but most will be shipped to Europe, where coal-fired plants are being converted to biomass fuel.
And Europeans are often looking to the U.S. to produce that fuel.
In May, RWE Innogy opened a plant in Waycross, Ga., capable of producing 750,000 tons of wood pellets a year.
The increased call for wood pellets is coming at a time when much of the lumber industry is hurting from the slowdown in new construction.
Monday, about 400 employees lost their jobs when Georgia-Pacific shut down its plywood plant in Hawthorne, just east of Gainesville. The company is calling it a curtailment, not a closure.
roger.bull@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4296
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