VANCOUVER, May 27, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - Licella Fibre
Fuels Pty Ltd. ("Licella") and Canfor Pulp Products Inc. ("CPPI")
(TSX: CFX), through its subsidiary Canfor Pulp Ltd., ("Canfor
Pulp") have signed an agreement to form a joint-venture under the
name "Licella Pulp Joint Venture".
Licella Pulp Joint Venture is a strategic relationship between
the two companies that will investigate opportunities to integrate
Licella's unique Catalytic Hydrothermal Reactor (Cat-HTR) upgrading
platform into Canfor Pulp's kraft and mechanical pulp mills to
economically convert biomass, including wood residues from Canfor
Pulp's kraft pulping processes, into biocrude oil, to produce next
generation biofuels and biochemicals. This additional residue
stream refining would allow Canfor Pulp to further optimise their
pulp production capacity. Upon successful integration of the
Cat-HTR technology, the Licella Pulp Joint Venture would look
towards offering this solution to other third party Kraft and
mechanical pulp mills.
This agreement follows a successful program of preliminary
trials conducted on feedstock from Canfor Pulp's Prince George, British Columbia pulp mill at
Licella's pilot plants located in New
South Wales, Australia. In these trials, wood residue
streams from Canfor Pulp's kraft process were successfully
converted into a stable biocrude oil.
"Biofuels and biochemicals represent the next frontier in the
utilization of sustainable wood fibre to produce green energy and
chemicals," said Don Kayne, CEO of
CPPI. "This initiative underscores Canfor Pulp's commitment
to innovation and the importance of green energy and chemicals in
our future product mix, and we look forward to developing this
potentially transforming technology with Licella."
"The Cat-HTR process is a strong technical fit for the kraft
process," said Brett Robinson,
President of CPPI. "The opportunity to directly produce
advanced biofuels from our existing streams could transition Canfor
Pulp from being strictly a pulp and paper manufacturer to a
bio-energy producer as well. The Licella technology has
significant similarities to our existing processes which makes this
partnership a natural fit."
"Licella's Cat-HTR technology may add significant value to
Canfor Pulp's kraft process by creating new products from Canfor
Pulp's waste streams," said Dr Len
Humphreys, CEO of Licella. "What we are potentially
building towards is a bio-refinery to utilise the entire tree,
rather than part of the tree."
About Licella Fibre Fuels Pty. Ltd. and Ignite Energy Resources
Ltd. (IER)
Licella is a subsidiary of Licella Pty. Limited, which in turn
is a subsidiary of Ignite Energy Resources Ltd. (IER), an
Australian public unlisted natural resource and energy technology
development company. IER has developed a proprietary lignite and
biomass upgrading platform, the Catalytic Hydrothermal Reactor
(Cat-HTR). Through the Cat-HTR technology, IER are
re-energising resources and creating a bridge to a lower carbon
future.
IER operates via three subsidiaries, Ignite Resources Pty. Ltd.
(applying Cat-HTR to lignite), Licella Pty. Ltd. (applying Cat-HTR
to biomass) and Gippsland Gas Pty. Ltd. (biogenic natural gas
resource). Within IER's resource division are the exploration
rights to a 16 billion tonne lignite deposit, which represents 8%
of the world's economically recoverable lignite.
Licella uses the Cat-HTR platform to convert a variety of
low-cost, non-edible biomass into a stable biocrude oil, which can
be refined, in a conventional refinery, into next generation
biofuels and biochemicals. Licella's Cat-HTR can theoretically
process any form of ligno-cellulosic biomass, without the need to
dry the feedstock prior to processing.
Over the past eight years Licella has invested AUD$60 million in
its technology development, conservatively yet progressively
scaling up its Cat-HTR platform to its current generation three
version. Licella is now on track to scale up to its generation four
version (only a ten times scale up), aligned to be the commercial
scale module of its now tried and tested reactor.
About CPPI
CPPI is a leading global supplier of pulp and paper products
with operations in the central interior of British Columbia ("BC") employing
approximately 1,300 people throughout the organization. Canfor Pulp
owns and operates three mills in Prince
George, BC with a total capacity of 1.1 million tonnes of
Premium Reinforcing Northern Bleached Softwood Kraft Pulp and
140,000 tonnes of kraft paper, as well as one mill in Taylor, BC with an annual production capacity
of 220,000 tonnes of Bleached Chemi-Thermo Mechanical Pulp
("BCTMP"). Canfor Pulp is the largest North American and one of the
largest global producers of market NBSK Pulp. CPPI shares are
traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol CFX.
Forward Looking Statements
Certain statements in this press release constitute
"forward-looking statements" which involve known and unknown risks,
uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be
materially different from any future results, performance or
achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Words
such as "expects", "anticipates", "projects", "intends", "plans",
"will", "believes", "seeks", "estimates", "should", "may", "could",
"theoretically", "potentially" and variations of such words and
similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking
statements. These statements are based on management's
current expectations and beliefs and actual events or results may
differ materially. There are many factors that could cause
such actual events or results expressed or implied by such
forward-looking statements to differ materially from any future
results expressed or implied by such statements.
Forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and
CPPI and/or Licella assume no obligation to update such information
to reflect later events or developments, except as required by
law.
SOURCE Canfor Pulp Products Inc.