Pacific BioEnergy Pellet Plant Permanently Closes

In December of 2021, Pacific BioEnergy announced that after 28-years of continuous operation it would be permanently closing its wood pellet plant in the Prince George B.C. area, eliminating 55 direct jobs. PacBio also announced at that time that it had reached an agreement to assign some of its assets, including wood pellet long term sales contracts to the Drax Group.

At a press conference held in front of the PacBio wood pellet plant on Willow Cale Road on Wednesday, March 4, 2022, Pacific BioEnergy’s CEO John Stirling announced that “Last night at 4 a.m. we did shut down the plant on a permanent basis.”

Stirling said, “We did not lay people off suddenly and send them home; we set a target and we successfully achieved that target last night, and we could only do it that way because we trust our team.”

Stirling noted other sawmill closures in the Prince George, B.C. area, which reduced the volume of available raw materials and increased their cost significantly. He also pointed to recent forest fires, landslides, and floods, which severely impacted the company’s ability to transport products by rail to the export terminal in North Vancouver, as reasons for the closing.