Last week employees arrived to work at Solvay Biomass Energy in Quitman only to find out the wood pellet plant where they worked ceased operations.
Solvay Biomass Energy announced last week through a press release posted on their website that all operations and production of wood pellets at the Quitman plant will stop effective immediately.
Neal Smaller, of the BTH Quitman Hickory parent company stated via a telephone call Monday to the Tribune that Solvay was an investor to BTH Quitman Hickory, which still owns the plant. Solvay was the entity that operated the plant.
Smaller stated that Solvay decided they no longer plan to operate the plant and feel like they have lost too much. According to the company press release, they stated the closure was due to a slow market and no longer able to operate profitably.
“We are currently in negotiations to buy their interests,” said Smaller. “We are protecting our assets with security guards (on site) until a resolution is reached with Solvay. We do have plans and it is all dependent upon BTH buying out Solvay.”
A round of layoffs occurred in February with the remaining last week. Currently, there is a plant manager along with a few key personnel and a guard company still employed.
The total number of layoffs could not be confirmed by company officials.
The Clarke County Board of Supervisors discussed the recent $45 million tax exemption of valued personal property request from BTH during Monday’s regular board meeting but tabled the decision because they have not been informed by any representatives of BTH or Solvay about what is going on. The supervisors would like to discuss the layoffs and future of the operations with the owners of plant before granting any tax exemption.
