There have probably been more announcements regarding the development of Saskatchewan’s value-added industries in the past month or two than in the previous 10 years.
The latest is the Red Leaf Pulp announcement of a $350 million plant to utilize wheat straw to make pulp. It is a novel idea that comes with a lot of new bells and whistles…it is smaller than the traditional pulp mill so much cheaper to construct and uses wheat straw which grows every year, unlike waiting for mature forests to develop. And it is cleaner with less chemical and lower carbon emissions than traditional production.
The company says the new plant will be erected in the Regina area, alluding to a location on the west side so keep an eye out for this to go in the GTH.
So far this year we’ve had announcements worth more than $1 billion in new value-added processing facilities in the province. This pulp project comes on the heels of four canola crushing plants being built or expanded to answer the need for more green bio-diesel.
