By Paul Morden, from www.theobserver.ca The Observer
While reporting the Montreal-based company’s quarterly financial results this week, CEO Jean-Francois Huc said construction is expected to finish in early 2015.
“Over the past quarter, the pace of construction has picked up considerably and we now average over 100 workers on site every day,” he said.
The company plans create 60 permanent jobs in Sarnia when it begins using sugar from corn to manufacture bio-succinic acid, a platform chemical used in plastic, cosmetics and other products.
Construction began last year at the Lanxess Bio-Industrial Park in Sarnia.
Huc said a warehouse building is now complete and work continues on an office building.
“The process building is going up in sequences to allow the various trades to work safely and effectively,” he added.
“To date, 78 pieces of equipment have been delivered and another 28 are expected in the coming weeks.”
BioAmber already has approximately 20 permanent workers in Sarnia, including six who were hired in the last quarter, Huc said.
“We have set up classes in Sarnia and are engaged in operator training on the production process to prepare for the commissioning and start up.”
Huc said starting up the plant is expected to take five months.
“We might be able to do it a little faster, but I think the realistic expectation is that we would be selling product by the middle of the year, and possibly sooner.”
BioAmber expects to have the Sarnia plant operating at 80% of its 30,000 tonne-a-year capacity in 2016.
“These plants, when they start up, they do take time and you need to do things sequentially and carefully, or you can run into problems down the line,” Huc said.
The Sarnia plant will be BioAmber’s first production site in North America and the company has already announced plans for two additional plants.
The first is expected to cost $400 million and will produce both succinic acid and butanediol. That facility is expected to be built in North America and BioAmber officials have said Sarnia is being considered as a location.
Huc said the company plans to have a site selected, and financing in place, by late next year. Construction is expected to begin in 2017.
Before it began building on Vidal Street, BioAmber said it planned to quickly expand production of succinic acid there to 50,000 tonnes annually.
Huc said the timing of that expansion is still being considered, adding the company would prefer to not have two construction projects happening at the same time.
“There are a number of factors that will play on this,” Huc said about the timing of the Sarnia expansion.
“But, what we don’t want to do is have significant demand we can’t respond to that ends up in the hands of competitors, so we will have to assess that over the coming year.”
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