Drax completes pellets acquistion

The Sun sets behind Drax Power Station..(tech Data ..Nikon D3s camera, 12-24mm lens, exposure 250th sec at f5.6, iso 400)...29th November 2016 ..Picture by Simon Hulme

Power station Drax has completed the acquisition of all of the assets of Louisiana Pellets, following a court hearing to approve the result of an auction on March 30.

Louisiana Pellets is the owner and developer of a wood biomass pellet manufacturing facility located in Urania, Louisiana. The acquisition price for the business was $35.4m.

Louisiana Pellets will provide additional biomass pellet capacity in the region of 450,000 tonnes per year.

Drax is looking to build a flexible supply chain enabling it to self-supply 30 per cent of its generation requirement.

The plant is expected to return to service by early 2018 following incremental investment to upgrade and optimise the facility.

Dorothy Thompson, CEO of Drax Group, said: “Louisiana Pellets marks another positive step in delivering the Drax Group strategy.

“The deal forms part of our plan to significantly increase our capability to manufacture high quality compressed wood pellets and increase self-supply to Drax Power Station.

“Upgrading half the Power Station to use sustainable wood pellets has resulted in Drax producing 16% of the UK’s renewable electricity and with the right conditions we aim to do more.”

The North Yorkshire firm was once one of the biggest polluters in Europe.

Drax said that 65 per cent of its electricity was generated from sustainable compressed wood pellets last year as it ditches coal in favour of biomass.

This was up from 43 per cent in 2015, bringing it closer to its long term goal of being 100 per cent biomass.