Peter Telford, president of the peat pellet producing company based out of Toronto, Ont., said their business plan was submitted to Newfoundland and Labrador’s government last month. He hopes the plan — based on the establishment of a 200,000-tonne per year peat fuel production facility in the Stephenville or St. George’s area — will help leverage further support from provincial and federal-provincial agencies.

Based on the extensive peat resources in this province, Telford said such a production plant could be the first of a number of such facilities.

“The big challenge is finding the markets to sell into, and that will be our focus for the next period of time — finding the buyers for the product so we can go ahead with the feasibility studies, the financing, and the environmental work that would be needed to put the facility in place,” he said.

The 5,000-tonne per year pilot plant currently in Stephenville will continue to be utilized to produce peat pellets used in marketing the product, but also in making advancements in the production technology.

Telford said he is hoping to secure financing through the province’s research and development corporation to continue to explore technology development activities. He also said there are discussions to partner with students and staff at the College of the North Atlantic on such initiatives.

With a number of areas in Newfoundland under permit which have not been fully evaluated, the president said they will also continue to gather more resources.

“We indicated, all going well, we would like to be in production by the summer of 2012,” Telford said of the business plan. “So, we have this year, 2011, to pull all the pieces together — marketing, financing, technology work, getting the environmental and other regulatory approvals in place — so we are in a position to begin putting the plant together in the beginning of 2012 and start production during the summer.”

He said the focus will be on securing customers to help the company reach its potential. He said discussions with local customers such as Corner Brook Pulp and Paper and a group looking to establish greenhouse operations near Deer Lake have been encouraging. He also considers the prospects of supplying Nova Scotia Power and tapping into the European market as positive.

“We know our fuel is very price competitive with wood pellets and other types of biomass fuels, we can certainly provide a more reasonably priced pellet fuel than the wood pellet people can,” he said. “I think we are in a very good position to break into those markets.”

Meanwhile, in Ontario, Peat Resources Ltd. continues to be in discussions regarding the “Ring of Fire” mining development. Last month, Telford said company representatives met with provincial officials to review energy concerns relating to the proposed chromite mining and ore processing in northern Ontario.

He said he is confident peat fuel can replace coal at the generating stations and the provision of peat-fuelled combined heat and power systems to northern remote communities will help government and private sector proponents achieve their goals.

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