Caleb Nickerson
CAMPBELL’S BAY
Oct. 3, 2017
At the council of mayors meeting on Oct. 3, executives from Fibre Pontiac gave a progress report on the Biomass Conversion Centre (CVB), an initiative they hope will re-launch the region’s forestry industry.
Fibre Pontiac is a non-profit organization formed by MRC Pontiac earlier this year in order to promote the CVB project that they announced in August 2015. It was formed in order to seek grants and funding for the project, which is beyond the MRC’s mandate as an elected body.

In January of this year, Pierre Vézina and Denis Larivière were appointed president and vice president, respectively, and they delivered the progress report for the organization.
The CVB would be a facility for processing pulpwood, a low-grade wood formerly used by the pulp and paper industry in the region, into various value-added products. The first phase would be a bio-refinery that would take in wood and break it down into crystalline cellulose and lignin. Further phases would add on a pellet plant and bark extraction unit, among other things, to diversify the centre’s output.
The highlight of the report was the feedback Fibre Pontiac had received at a meeting last month with potential private investors and stakeholders in New York.
“While the CVB project has continued its forward trajectory this past year, this meeting has brought us a significant step closer to implementing a bio-refinery on Pontiac soil,” Vézina said.
MRC Strategic Communications Advisor Danielle Bélec said that if all stays according to plan, they hope to break ground for the bio-refinery in early 2019, but it will take several years to build. She explained that two U.S. companies had shown interest in investment, but their identities were protected by a non-disclosure agreement.
“The possible investors are really on board, that’s really reassuring,” said Pontiac Warden Raymond Durocher. “We’re not the only MRCs with mixed forests, that’s why we have to be careful. If too much information gets out … [someone] could take our project out from under our feet.”
Durocher added that he was pleased with the progress Fibre Pontiac had made over the course of the year and said he was “very confident” the project would continue its forward momentum.
“I hope to see the day it’s built,” he said. “I put a lot of energy into it and the council of elected officials put a lot of energy into it.”