NATCHEZ, Miss.–By John Mott Coffey, with News Mississippi affiliate WQNZ
NATCHEZ, Miss.–The Adams County Board of Supervisors approved a land deal Tuesday for a Canadian-based gas company to acquire part of the property once occupied by the International Paper plant.
The board authorized an option agreement for EmberClear Corp. to get about 70 acres of the county-owned land, said board attorney Scott Slover.
“The option price was for good and valuable consideration. All other details have not been released,” Slover said after the meeting, which was closed to the public.
EmberClear did announce in 2013 it had completed a feasibility study to build a plant in Adams County to convert natural gas into liquids. Since then, however, the multinational company has encountered financial problems. It’s lost money, defaulted on loan payments and had its stock trading halted in Canada because it didn’t file its annual audited financial statements.
EmberClear announced earlier this month its loss for the three-month period ending in September was only $371,842 as compared to a loss of $1.1 million for the same period in 2013.
“We are pleased to see many of the long-term cost-cutting initiatives we have put in place since early 2014 begin to take shape. Our recently achieved scale has put us in a competitive position to develop energy projects in North America,” EmberClear CEO David Anderson said in a company statement.
It’s uncertain what impact EmberClear’s financial woes have had on its earlier plans in Adams County.
Previous projections for its Adams County plant had it needing about 1,000 construction workers and creating about 150 permanent onsite and related jobs, according to information currently posted on EmberClear’s website. Ground was to be broken this year with the facility in production by the end of 2016.
The company has had plans in Adams County for about 800 acres by the Mississippi River with a plant producing 4,000 tons per day of methanol and being capable of converting it into 14,000 barrels of gasoline and liquid petroleum gases per day.
A map on EmberClear’s website shows its proposed facility is on farmland adjacent to the IP land.
The Adams County Board of Supervisors bought the 478-acre IP property last year for $9 million with hopes to lure industries in need of land and the large industrial wastewater treatment facility there. IP shut its mill down in 2003.
For more information about EmberClear’s Adams County project, go to:
http://www.emberclear.com/projects/ms-liquids/
