Inside this issue

From the Editors

Feedstock? It’s In The Woods

Pulling this issue together made for very interesting research on one story, the final engineering phase for the SunGas Renewables and C2X project in central Louisiana. The facility, Beaver Lake Renewable Energy, is scheduled to produce up to 500,000 tons of green methanol, a key component in marine-grade diesel fuel. (Shipping giant Maersk is a part owner.)

The project is in the home stretch as it begins the final engineering design phase before a startup in late 2027 or early ’28.

In writing the news release up, it’s the location of the plant, near Pineville, La., that caught our eye. That’s where International Paper closed a paper mill in 2009 that blew a hole in the supply chain and fiber markets in the region. In fact, Beaver Lake Renewable Energy sits on the former mill site.

We’ve written about the feedstock opportunity for wood bioenergy previously, as the pulp and paper industry undergoes a wrenching transition away from office paper and, really paper of all kinds in the digital age, and more of the remaining capacity comes from recycled material. And even more “opportunity” now in the offing as Georgia-Pacific just announced the closure of its Cedar Springs, Ga. containerboard plant as the transition continues.

We’re not sure if Louisiana provides an illustrative case that applies elsewhere, but here’s what has happened in the Pelican State in two major markets as paper capacity shifted:

• In 2008, International Paper closed its Bastrop, La. pulp mill, affecting 500+ employees and taking 450,000 tons of pulp off the market. In 2015 pellet producer Drax built its Morehouse Bioenergy facility just north of Bastrop, bringing 65 jobs back to the area and 450,000 tons of pellet output.
• A year later IP closed its containerboard plant at Pineville, La., putting 230 out of work. Meanwhile, here in 2025—16 years later—Beaver Lake Renewable Energy has moved onto the site and is looking to rejuvenate the fiber market in that area, although fiber deliveries are at least two years away.

Pulp and paper mills are the type of wood-consuming facilities that require the high volumes of small logs that allow logging and chipping contractors to build cost-efficient companies and fiber supply chains to scale in a highly expensive industry. The closure of these types of mills has a way of compounding itself as loggers and fiber suppliers need fewer employees, machines, truck drivers, fill-ups, cold drinks and lunch plates. When a primary market closes, you can only break even or lose money for so long before you have to do something else.

And once the fiber supply industry’s markets and infrastructure are phased out (just ask the folks in Arizona), rebuilding productive, growth-oriented capacity is exceedingly difficult.

That’s why when Wood Bioenergy companion publication Timber Harvesting, America’s only national logging magazine, notes that in its 2025 Logger Survey 45% of loggers report they broke even or lost money in 2024, procurement managers of all types need to pay attention.

As the most recent GP announcement shows, there’s increasing feedstock opportunities in the woods as pulp and paper markets shift, but taking full advantage requires a healthy fiber supply chain from the stump up.

From Left: Jessica Johnson, Managing Editor; Dan Shell, Senior Editor; Rich Donnell, Editor-in-Chief; David Abbott, Senior Associate Editor