Company Eyes Valley for Waste-to-Fuels Plant
BOARDMAN, Ohio – A decision could be forthcoming in a month on whether a Fort Wayne, Ind. waste-to-fuels company moves forward on a $517 million plant under consideration for the Mahoning Valley.
Nature's Fuel is considering sites in northeastern Oho and western Pennsylvania for the plant, which would convert various types of waste to low-sulfur diesel fuel. The company is "very, very strongly considering" putting a plant in the Campbell area, said Bill Sinish, CEO and chairman, during a news conference Friday.
Campbell is a focus of the site search at the suggestion of George Krinos, CEO of the Krinos Group, who asked Nature's Fuel to first look at sites in the Campbell-Struthers area. Boardman-based Krinos is providing financing for the project as well as two other plants Nature's Fuel announced this week it would construct in Constantine, Mich. and Huntington, Ind.
"George is probably going to make the money available to us over the next few weeks, and it would be nice to have a decision before that happens," said Glenn Johnson, chief operating officer and president of Nature's Fuel.
Krinos Group started out as a financial advisory firm but after seeing the difficulties businesses were having getting funds to grow, Krinos developed a proprietary concept to allow businesses to finance their new facilities, he said. Over the next few months, his firm is making up to $2.5 billion available to companies.
Krinos Group will only finance American companies that are opening facilities in the United States and will hire American workers, Krinos said.
Nature's Fuel will consider several factors, including quality of the local work force, local cooperation, good transportation access such as by rail or barge, and incentives.
"We're not looking for anything extraordinary. We don’t want to go to a place where there's no incentives if everybody else is willing to offer us a little," Johnson said.
A news release issued by the company noted that JobsOhio, the state's economic development arm, has declined to offer Nature's Fuel any incentives for considering Ohio, making local incentives more crucial.
The company is looking at several sites in Ohio and Pennsylvania, Johnson said. ,"If we can't make it work in Campbell it's not because we didn't really try," he said.
The plant would create about 600 jobs, including about 230 people employed directly at the plant and about 250 indirect support jobs, such as truck divers, rail workers, new local suppliers and services. Construction and equipment fabrication could create several hundred more jobs. Construction of the plant is expected to take 12 to 15 months after close of funding. Required permits would also need to be secured by state agencies.
Copyright 2012 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.