Acquisition increases Drax’s control over biomass production

Power station owner Drax has agreed to acquire a 20% minority interest in Alabama Pellets – the joint venture which owns the Demopolis and Aliceville pellet plants – from The Westervelt Company for $29.7m/£21.5m.

This will increase the Group’s interest in Alabama Pellets to 90% and provide Drax with economic control over a further 130,000 tonnes of biomass production capacity per annum. Completion is expected to take place in July 2021.

Demopolis and Aliceville are located in Alabama, in the US southeast, close to the Group’s existing US operations and have a combined nameplate production capacity of 660,000 tonnes per annum.

Aliceville was commissioned in 2018 and Demopolis is expected to be commissioned in 2021.

Drax Group now has 13 operational pellet plants – including Aliceville – plus satellite plant developments and Demopolis, with total nameplate production capacity of 4.9 million tonnes per annum once commissioned.

These plants are geographically diverse, with access to four deep water ports providing routes to markets in Asia, Europe and the UK.