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Licella and Canfor announce “Licella Pulp Joint Venture”

Licella Fibre Fuels Pty Ltd and Canfor Pulp Products Inc., via its subsidiary Canfor Pulp Ltd., have signed an agreement to form a joint-venture under the name "Licella Pulp Joint Venture". The JV will investigate opportunities to integrate Licella's Catalytic Hydrothermal Reactor (Cat-HTR) upgrading platform into Canfor Pulp's kraft and mechanical pulp mills to economically convert biomass, including wood residues from the kraft pulping processes, into biocrude oil.

Licella Fibre Fuels Pty Ltd (Licella), an Australia-based subsidiary of Licella Pty Ltd, which in turn is a subsidiary of Ignite Energy Resources Ltd (IER), an Australian public unlisted natural resource and energy technology development company that has developed a proprietary lignite and biomass upgrading platform, and Canada-based global forest industry major Canfor Pulp Products Inc., (CPPI), through its subsidiary Canfor Pulp Ltd., have signed an agreement to form a joint-venture under the name “Licella Pulp Joint Venture”.

Licella Pulp Joint Venture is a strategic relationship between the two companies that will investigate opportunities to integrate Licella’s unique Catalytic Hydrothermal Reactor (Cat-HTR) upgrading platform into Canfor Pulp’s kraft and mechanical pulp mills. The aim is to economically convert biomass, including wood residues from Canfor Pulp’s kraft pulping processes, into biocrude oil, to produce next generation biofuels and biochemicals.

– Biofuels and biochemicals represent the next frontier in the utilization of sustainable wood fibre to produce green energy and chemicals.This initiative underscores Canfor Pulp’s commitment to innovation and the importance of green energy and chemicals in our future product mix, and we look forward to developing this potentially transforming technology with Licella, said Don Kayne, CEO of CPPI in a statement.

This additional residue stream refining would allow Canfor Pulp to further optimise its pulp production capacity. Upon successful integration of the Cat-HTR technology, the Licella Pulp Joint Venture would look towards offering this solution to other third party kraft and mechanical pulp mills.

– The Cat-HTR process is a strong technical fit for the kraft process.he opportunity to directly produce advanced biofuels from our existing streams could transition Canfor Pulp from being strictly a pulp and paper manufacturer to a bioenergy producer as well. The Licella technology has significant similarities to our existing processes which makes this partnership a natural fit, said Brett Robinson, President of CPPI.

The agreement follows a successful programme of preliminary trials conducted on feedstock from Canfor Pulp’s facility in Prince George, British Columbia (BC), Canada at Licella’s pilot plants located in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. In these trials, wood residue streams from Canfor Pulp’s kraft process were successfully converted into a stable biocrude oil.

– Licella’s Cat-HTR technology may add significant value to Canfor Pulp’s kraft process by creating new products from Canfor Pulp’s waste streams.What we are potentially building towards is a biorefinery to utilise the entire tree, rather than part of the tree, said Dr Len Humphreys, CEO of Licella.

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