California-based bio-chemical company, Origin Materials, says its first plant now under construction in Sarnia is on schedule to be completed by the end of the year.
The facility that will use biomass, such as sawdust, to make building-block chemicals for the manufacturing of plastic and other products is being assembled in an industrial park at the Arlanxeo site along Vidal Street.
“We continue to execute our construction timelines achieving several project milestones ahead of schedule,” co-CEO John Bissell said during a recent earnings call.
Key production modules assembled off-site and shipped to Sarnia were installed “six months ahead of the plan announced in April 2021,” he said.
An evaporator module system was installed three months ahead of schedule, he said.
“We’ve continued to make progress in 2022,” he said. “Installation of structural elements and interconnecting piping, the main plant production modules” have been largely completed.
Foundation work for the majority of auxiliary process building and tank farms is also complete, Bissell said.
Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley joined local officials and company representatives recently on a tour of the plant site.
“I think they’re moving into a hiring mode of about 50 people,” Bradley said. “They’re going to have a job fair – I just don’t know when.”
Origin Materials’ decision to select Sarnia for its first plant was “a breakthrough for us,” Bradley said. “This is the future.”
Officials in Sarnia have been working in recent decades to promote the region as a “hybrid chemical cluster” to attract green energy and bio-chemical companies to locate alongside established petrochemical companies and refineries in what’s known locally as Chemical Valley.
Bradley said that effort has included promoting sites, such as the industrial park at Arlanxeo which offers use established services for new manufacturing facilities. It’s already the home of a production site for LCY Biosciences.
“You develop the cluster no different than the fast food industry does,” with companies drawn to locations where similar ventures are already located, he said.
The Origin Materials plant can serve as a “poster-person for other companies to show this is what you can do and the workforce is solid,” Bradley said.
Bradley said Origin Materials is “way ahead of schedule” on the Sarnia plant “because of the construction force here,” adding company officials said they were impressed with the safety levels and “competence” of the local construction building trades.
Origin Materials announced in 2017 it would build a “pioneer plant” in Sarnia to demonstrate its technology and produce its bio-chemicals so their use can be qualified with customer’s production processes.
The company announced last month its first world-scale manufacturing facility will be built in Louisiana on a site next along the Mississippi River near pulp and saws mills able to supply the large amount of wood residue feedstock required.
Bissell said they started out looking at 40 sites before selecting the location in Louisiana with its access to transportation networks, hydrogen and ethylene pipelines from a local industrial cluster, a skilled workforce and a “compelling” incentive package from state and local governments.
The plant is expected to employ 200 workers after construction is completed in mid-2025, the company said.
“When you ask, it’s all about supply,” of feedstock, Bradley said about the company’s decision to select the site in Louisiana.
“They certainly haven’t ruled out this location for another plant as they grow,” he said.