Production begins at Origin Materials’ Sarnia plant

California-based Origin Materials has said the company’s first manufacturing site officially began operating in Sarnia.

The $130-million facility, which uses biomass such as sawdust to make building-block chemicals for the manufacturing of plastic and other products, was built in an industrial park at the Arlanxeo site on Vidal Street.

Origin Materials formed in 2008 and in 2017 announced Sarnia would be the site of its first plant.

Work began offsite soon after, assembling industrial modules that would make up the facility, referred to by the company as Origin 1, and construction at the site continued through the pandemic. Commissioning of the facility began earlier this year.

“The startup of Origin 1 is a testament to the strength of our team in the face of pandemic and related supply-chain headwinds,” John Bissell, co-founder and co-CEO of Origin Materials, said in a statement.

“It’s excellent news,” said Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley. “It’s a demonstration project we can show outside the community.”

Officials in the Sarnia area began working several years ago to position the community as a home for emerging bio-chemistry ventures, alongside its traditional oil refineries and chemical manufacturers.

The community is home to Bioindustrial Innovation Canada, a government funded agency helping emerging bio-chemical companies, as well as the Western Sarnia-Lambton Research Park and Lambton College, one of the country’s leaders in applied research.

Origin Materials was a tenant at the research park and Lambton County joined Bioindustrial Innovation Canada making an early investment in the company.

“They’ve been a really good company to deal with,” Bradley said.

Origin Materials said there are more than 25 workers at the Sarnia site, “and we will be continuing to hire in the future.”

The Sarnia plant makes chloromethyl furfural (CMF,) a building-block chemical used to make other products, including a precursor to PET plastic. The site also will produce hydrothermal carbon which has uses including as carbon black for tires.

“The commercialization of a molecule like CMF is historic, on the order of an ethylene,” Bissell said. “After working with CMF for over a decade at pilot scale, we couldn’t be more excited to begin commercial production here in Sarnia.”

The company said the Sarnia plant will provide products to “fulfill customer demand around qualification and sampling” as well as playing a key role in developing products eventually expected to be made at future company facilities, including a large manufacturing site Origin Materials plans to build in Louisiana.

“We are excellently positioned to meet the massive customer demand for our renewable, carbon negative products, as we continue to execute on our mission to enable the world’s transition to sustainable materials,” Bissell said.