Hopes for a new wood pellet plant between Stephens and Camden are in the balance as the decision-making scale toggles between Arkansas and Mississippi.
Thomas Reilley, the founder of Highland Pellets LLC, has been struggling to get state incentives from Arkansas, but he expected to close last week on 300 acres in south Arkansas.
He told us last week that a plant similar to Highland’s $230 million plant in Pine Bluff will go to the Arkansas site or to Enterprise, Mississippi.
The Pine Bluff plant, on 150 acres of Jefferson Industrial Park, manufactures low-moisture wood pellets that have become a sought-after replacement fuel for coal in British electric generation facilities. As a renewable resource, they fit in with European environmental goals.
“We would love to build in south Arkansas, and we are seeking tax credits for the jobs the plant would produce,” Reilley said as an aside in a broader discussion of Pine Bluff revitalization (see Pine Bluff Is Rising). “Close to 400 loggers and truckers could be put to work, and there are indirect jobs,” he said.
Reilley wouldn’t say more for now, but indicated he might have “a lot to say in a separate call” in a few weeks.