Driving along Highway 82 white-hot steam can be seen rising in the distance against the backdrop of an azure blue sky. Approaching the source, located on the east side of Nahunta, Georgia, an industrial-type building, and what appears to be piles of sand and mulch-like material, comes into view. What isn’t immediately apparent driving by, is that this unassuming plant tucked in the southeast corner of rural Georgia is rooted locally but growing internationally.

Archer Forest Products, LLC, is Okefenoke REMC’s newest business/industrial consumer-member. It is one of four wood pellet mills owned by FRAM Renewable Fuels based in Hazlehurst, Georgia, that exports pellets to the European Union (EU). Using sawmill residues, tops and other low-value trees, FRAM’s pellets are used as a coal replacement for power generation overseas. It is part of the EU’s initiative, along with the increased use of wind and solar power, to help reduce carbon emissions and fight climate change.

“FRAM’s goal is to produce wood pellets with the smallest possible carbon footprint,” explains Hillary Nencioni, executive assistant at FRAM. “Our pellet customers have carbon dioxide thresholds in place that we must stay below. As a result, we track every aspect in the pellet making process from the haul distance of raw materials to the mills, the utilities used in pellet production and the final transportation to the port to calculate our greenhouse gas emissions. On site, we observe Georgia Protection Division regulations for air and water emissions, and we have projects in place to further reduce emissions.”

FRAM acquired the Nahunta plant in August 2018 after it went up for auction. Its strategic location is close to the Port of Brunswick where all their wood pellets are shipped out of. After investing $15 million in capital and process improvements, Archer Forest Products, LLC, began production in February 2019.

Maintenance Manager Joey Boyett attests to the operational investments and the process improvements continuously being made at Archer, “Based on their experiences at their other mills, FRAM really took a good hard look at what was here and the flow of materials in order to make the plant operational in the most efficient way possible. There are a lot of moving parts to bring in a green chip, dry it, compress it and move it out as a finished product.”

He isn’t kidding. Getting a tour of the grounds, the maze of loaders, hoppers, elevators, mixers, sifters, drums and conveyors is, at first, confusing. Joey explains the complex evolution from mixing dry and green materials to outputting 6 mm pellets that pass stringent quality control inspections for moisture content, before being trucked to the Port of Brunswick.

“All of our pellets are made from raw materials: in-woods chips, trees that are chipped in the forest, and round wood or whole trees brought in to our facility and chipped here onsite,” explains Joey. “A mixture of tree bark, pine and some hardwood chips, that in years past would have been waste, are now used to fire our 40 mm Btu furnace. The furnace creates the heat that our dryer system needs in order to dry green, or wet, chips to a desired moisture percentage before being processed.”

“So now we have dry chips from our dryer system that are mixing with our dry side materials—such as dry shavings, dry sawdust etc.—that then go through a couple of hammer mills,” he continues. “The hammer mills have a choice of screen sizes in them, and the mix of chips and dry side materials are pulverized by the hammers and forced through those screens to reduce the particle size. From this point there are a few more conveyors and distribution bins that the materials will move through before reaching the pellet mill presses where that material will finally be pressed through a 4.5 foot diameter pellet mill die containing 3,600 round 6 mm diameter holes forming the pellet that we produce.”

Archer has six pellet mills with a total output capacity of about 120,000 metric tons annually. Before being loaded on trucks headed for the port, random pellets are checked at the onsite lab to ensure the moisture content is within acceptable limits. They will be checked again at the port before being loaded and shipped to the United Kingdom.

All the materials used by Archer are residual byproducts of other lumber mill and forestry operations. Most of it is pine from Georgia, but Joey says some hardwood can be mixed in the bark used to fire the furnace. While dry chips are the most ideal, green is more prevalent and less expensive.

The pride is evident in Joey’s voice as he explains the many processes in play at the plant. When asked to describe what he likes most about his job, he takes a moment to reflect, “FRAM making this plant operational created about 35 new jobs. That is significant in southeast Georgia as we are about as rural as you can get. The folks here are hard working people looking to make an honest living. But to think what we do here has a world-wide impact that is noteworthy, as is the ripple effect of our operations locally. From the mills, the loggers, local truck drivers, the restaurants, the ACE Hardware, OREMC . . . everyone benefits.”

For more information about FRAM Renewable Fuels visit http://www.framfuels.com/