A golden opportunity has been lost by one small Saskatchewan city, but claimed by another.
Melfort, Sask., had been chosen by California-based Alpha Fibre Inc. as the future home of a $30 million flax fibre processing plant and the 50 manufacturing jobs associated with the project.
However, Melfort’s opportunity to turn straw into gold vanished when Alpha Fibre’s land deal fell through last month.
The company had attempted to secure property adjacent to the site of its proposed factory. But after the owner of that land died, the ground became entangled in an estate that could not be settled in time for the company to go ahead with the project at the proposed location, say officials with the City of Weyburn, Sask., where the plant will now be located.
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
Debrah Kern, Alpha Fibre chief executive officer, could not be reached for comment, but in earlier interviews she said the company needed “land adjacent to our building site where we can store a season or more of inventory.”
Inventory could be as much as 100,000 tonnes of flax straw.
Weyburn, 400 kilometres south of Melfort, is in an area that also produces large amounts of flax, providing a reliable supply of raw material for the new plant.
The City of Weyburn owns a former liquor distillery and enough land to accommodate the straw adjacent to the 23,000 sq. metre building.
According to Weyburn city officials, Alpha Fibre had already begun to stockpile some of the 30,000 tonnes of straw contracted to the company.
Alpha Fibre will create plastic resin and flax fibre pellets called Fibex that will be used to make automotive parts. The product will compete with glass fibre pellets produced in the injection moulding industry.
The flax product is easier and cheaper to recycle. Byproducts of the process can be used to make plastic lumber.
The company is privately owned by Kern, who has said in the past she plans to merge it with an American business in the next few months and then offer shares to the public on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
Alpha Fibre has told Weyburn officials it plans to open the plant later this year.
