july2017

242 243 That is why it’s called ‘low carbon electricity,’ and that’s why it’s declared and accepted as ‘renewable’ by the governments of theworld.” In Canada,the government’s forest certification processmandates that harvested treesmust con- stantlybe replaced,and Bassett believes that this systemgives his country the edge in providing a more sustainable product.“Canada has an extremely comprehensive set of laws and regulations associat- edwith themanagement of its forests,”he stresses. “You have to replacewood after a certain period with exactly the speciesmix that was found there originally.The good part is that as long as you’re using the forest,you’ve always got more active growth in there than youwould otherwise have had just by leaving it alone.Byextension,the sawmilling and logging residual fiber in Canada prettymuch all originates fromgovernment land,which is about 98 percent forest-management certified.In BC,where Pinnacle is based,there ismore certified forest than the next biggest country.Plus,don’t forget,it’s 95 per- cent residual-based.We find this combination very helpful in selling our products as,probably,themost sustainablewood pellet fuel in theworld.” Bassett maintains that the current market for wood pellets is very strong and is expected to grow. “Our markets todayaremainly in Europe–the UK being very strong,”he reports.“There are a couple of what used to be coal-fired power stations that have converted, or are converting, to wood pellets. And there are a couple of new projects that will be using wood pellets as their preferred fuel from NORDEN – PROUD SHIPPING PARTNER OF PINNACLE In December 2016, Dampskibsselskabet NORDEN A/S entered into a 9-year contract for the transportation of wood pellets with Pinnacle Renewable Energy Inc. Beginning 2018, NORDEN will transport a total of 3.5 million tonnes of wood pellets from Vancouver and Prince Rupert in Western Canada to Europe. The trans- ports will be carried out on Supramax vessels, of which NORDEN is one of the world’s largest operators. Founded in 1871, NORDEN has a proven track re- cord of delivering safe, flexible and reliable transport solutions to some of the world’s leading enterprises. Services which also are in high demand by Pinnacle: ”We picked NORDEN for a couple of reasons. We needed a partner with their own fleet to ensure they could ride out whatever cycles we will meet in the almost 10 years the contract covers. That partner also needed to have a very good reputation in the ship- ping industry and to be flexible and customer focused enough to satisfy both ourselves and the receiver con- sistently over the long term. We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship,” says Vaughan Bassett, Senior Vice President in Pinnacle Renewable Energy Inc. The first delivery will be performed in the summer of 2018 with representatives from both Pinnacle and NORDEN present in Tyne in the United Kingdom over- seeing the first unloading of pellets to the receiver. PINNACLE RENEWABLE ENERGY INC.