Construction Begins on Largest Wood Pellet Plant in United States Schuyler Wood Pellet Will Heat 40,000 Homes

Schuyler NY – New England Wood Pellet LLC today announced that it has begun construction of its Schuyler New York wood pellet manufacturing plant.  At 100,000 tons per year of wood pellet production, the plant will be the largest wood pellet manufacturing facility in the United States, and produce enough renewable energy annually to heat 40,000 homes.

The $12 million plant will be located in the Schuyler Business and Industrial Park on Route 5 just east of Utica, within sight of the NY Thruway.  Schuyler Wood Pellet will have about 20 employees when production begins in May 2007.  An estimated 75 additional jobs will be created by the facility in trucking and retailing.  Schuyler Wood Pellet will infuse the local economy with over $10 million in expenditures annually.

"We're extremely excited about our new location in Schuyler," said Steve Walker, President and CEO of New England Wood Pellet at a ground-breaking ceremony today.  "It's perfectly located to supply homeowners and businesses in Utica, Syracuse and the rest of central New York, where pellet shortages have been severe in recent years."

Attending the ground-breaking was NY Congressman Sherwood Boehlert (R-Utica), long a champion of environmental and renewable energy issues in Congress.  Congressman Boehlert is retiring this year after 24 years in Congress.  "As a strong supporter of advancing alternative energy and job creation, I welcome New England Wood Pellet to the beautiful Mohawk Valley" said Boehlert.  "Not only will this new facility produce enough energy to heat 40,000 local homes - it will also create close to 20 full time jobs and strengthen the local tax base.  Today's announcement is yet another example of how working in partnership at all levels of government delivers results and improves the quality of life in our region."

The plant will produce premium grade wood pellet fuel from a variety of clean wood waste, including sawdust, wood chips, shavings and grindings from wood product manufacturing plants throughout central New York State.  These residues are dried and ground to a fine sawdust, and compressed into ¼ inch diameter pellets – a clean, energy-dense and convenient fuel that can be burned in pellet stoves, furnaces and boilers.

New England Wood Pellet was aided greatly in identifying and securing the site by the Herkimer County Industrial Development Agency, which owns the business park.  The park is located in an Empire Zone, which provided the company with certain incentives created by the State of New York to encourage new job creation in economically depressed regions of the state.

The company is accepting inquiries from potential new retailers and institutional, commercial or industrial users of wood pellets interested in large-scale heating or power generation.

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Based in Jaffrey NH, New England Wood Pellet is on track to be the largest manufacturer and distributor of wood pellet fuel in the U.S.  The company recently announced that it had begun operations of its Palmer MA packaging and reload center, where over 80,000 tons per year of wood pellets are being imported from British Columbia, Canada, bagged and distributed throughout the northeast.  The company expects to make an announcement within a month on a second new 100,000 ton/year plant, elsewhere in the northeastern U.S.