Inside this issue
FROM THE EDITORS
Market Evolution Get with it, or get out
IN THE NEWS
- Biomass Plant Coming To SC
- Ukraine Biomass Plant Hit By Russia Drone
- Enviva Gets Going At New Epes Plant
- CM Biomass Has New Ownership
SOUTHPORT MOVING FORWARD NEW WEST COAST PELLET PLANT
NORTH BEND, Ore. — Developing a solution to sawmill residual disposal and utilization, Southport Lumber and its new pellet mill, Southport Chipco, are producing premium Douglas fir fuel pellets destined for the Japanese market, and the company is open to building additional chip capacity as the overall Japan and Asian market for pellets grows in the future.
Founded in 1998, Southport Forest Products is a family-owned company with diverse interests operating lumber, chip and now pellet manufacturing facilities in the Coos Bay area of coastal Oregon. Southport operations include a high-tech fully automated sawmill in North Bend that produces 200MMBF annually, plus a whole log shipping facility that serves both domestic markets and export markets such as Japan and Canada.
Southport also operates a logging division and works closely with private and industrial timberland owners. Located on the water, the sawmill receives a significant amount of seaborne timber from Washington state and even British Columbia that’s barged to the mill site and unloaded there.
Bruce Avery, Southport Chief Operations Officer, says that with the closing of Roseburg Forest Products’ large particleboard plant in Dillard, Ore., a major residual market for sawdust and shavings went away. This turned an always tight residual disposal challenge on the Oregon coast into one that was definitely losing money.
“The residuals had become a cost more than anything—it costs a lot of money to get rid of residuals,” Avery says. “The best solution was to make a product out of it and turn it into a margin for the business.
In doing so, Southport has joined with another company facing the same challenge: The Swanson Group of Roseburg, Ore., which operates plywood plants in Springfield and Glendale, a sawmill in Roseburg and now its own pellet plant in Oakland, Ore. that was in full operation in fall 2025.
In 2022, the two companies formed Oregon Pellet Mills, a trading company with an export loading terminal at the Port of Coos Bay only a few miles from the Southport sawmill. The 200 x 450 ft. warehouse has a 35,000 ton pellet capacity.
Southport Chipco and Swanson’s pellet company, Dean Resources, are the first suppliers to the terminal operation.
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From the Editors
Market Evolution Get With It, Or Get Out
The only constant in life is change—an adage the woody biomass industry knows all too well. New opportunities for growth, whether it be markets, products or a combination of the two, the woody biomass industry must always be evolving: A notion that took center stage during the recent annual meeting of the U.S. Industrial Pellet Assn. (USIPA) in Miami.
During the closing session, a panel of C-suite executives from the major U.S. producers Drax, Graanul Invest, Fram, Highland, Enviva, and CM Biomass, the entire hour was dominated by how the markets are changing, what could be done to capitalize on those markets, and how the collective industry (and USIPA itself) can step in and recognize a shift in demand, not just for industrial wood pellets but all woody biomass products. That perhaps the future is not just in bulk pellets for industrial use, though that market will never truly go away, but that other choices are there and pigeon holes do no good for anyone.
A heavy focus was on the softly launched “rebranding” of USIPA, moving away from a product- based identity for the group but instead doing what Wood Bioenergy magazine has done from its inception—seeing the role the working forest can play in both domestic and global energy production. A smart move by USIPA leadership, seeing the complementary objectives among producer companies of not just pellets but also biochar, carbon capture and storage (something Drax knows well) and even sustainable aviation fuels. For all interested parties, it is about alignment of resources and outreach efforts.
The woody biomass industry has traditionally struggled with telling its collective story, while headlines that dominate consumer media focus on the wrong things, like whatever BS The Dogwood Alliance is deciding to spew out.
With quotes like this from local news sources: “The more research I did, the more terrified I became of this project.” Of course the industry has a bit of a bad reputation to those that don’t know who we are and what good we can do. The sustainability buzzword buzzes less and less each time it is written. With tightening regulations and increased stakeholder scrutiny, the ability to craft a compelling narrative about land use and forest preservation is something the industry must consider as critical as ever.
When asked why the panelists thought state, local and even the federal government don’t see the value in helping push the biomass power message forward— specifically pointing to a recently announced largest data center in the Western hemisphere being constructed less than 40 miles from a Drax pellet plant to the north and 50 miles to the south in Louisiana— there wasn’t an answer. Why not leverage biomass for clean energy as a way to alleviate that usage surge?… And don’t even get us started on the opportunity to convert legacy coal plants to co-fire pellets.
Both Graanul Invest’s Nicholas Dottino and Drax’s Matt White said the way to open the doors of these politicians is to lean in heavily on not just the jobs created during construction but the jobs that will be sustained through operations as well as the ripple effect jobs that will come from sustained energy production operations. Something the data centers won’t provide long-term.
All industries have peaks and valleys and pivots. While wood pelleting might be in a state of flux, all the panelists were very optimistic and ready to work through the hard truths the industry is facing: declines in pulp and paper demand, investment hurdles, and global market constraints.
From Left: Jessica Johnson, Managing Editor; Dan Shell, Senior Editor; Rich Donnell, Editor-in-Chief; David Abbott, Senior Associate Editor
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