NATCHEZ — Elevance Renewable Sciences should start receiving equipment at its Natchez location starting this month.

“From February to June, we should start to receive the $15 million in equipment we have ordered for the biorefinery, and you should start seeing crews begin preparing the staging area for where (the plant construction) will be staged,” Elevance Vice President for Sales and Market Development Andy Shafer said. “We are probably pushing 20 percent of the investment we committed (for the Natchez project) in place.”

Elevance committed in 2011 to bring 165 permanent jobs to Adams County through the construction of a biorefinery at the former Delta Biofuels plant, though the company had a planned benchmark of getting its first biorefinery in Gresick, Indonesia, operating first. The Gresick plant started operations in 2013.

The work is anticipated to create approximately 300 construction jobs.

Shafer said this week while development in Natchez has been slower than some might have anticipated, it has been “slow but steady.”

“The group we have at the plant now has been very good at being productive to get things done in advance of the biorefinery coming in, things like demolition of old buildings and equipment that won’t work in the biorefinery,” he said.

The company continued to produce biodiesel at the plant while waiting for construction to begin. Elevance Natchez Plant Manager Kevin Diesen said the company currently has 20 employees working in biodiesel production.

“We had a production run during November and December, and we continue to ship out the finished product every day,” Diesen said.

While Elevance had initially planned to make a public offering to finance its operations, it was later able to pull the initial public offering by finding private investors. The Natchez plant will be financed through a debt offering, Shafer said, and the company is in the process of negotiating that now.

“The slowdown that we’ve seen in the shale oil industry has actually put us in a slightly better position,” Shafer said. “Six months ago, when shale production was really high, there was concern we might not be able to get that skill set  for construction and electrical we needed, but that concern has diminished from where it was six months ago.”

While the construction is ongoing, Elevance will look to find ways to move the blending of some of its product lines to the Natchez facility, Shafer said.

Elevance is a specialty chemicals company that creates novel specialty chemicals from renewable feedstocks. Using a proprietary technology called olefin metathesis, the company makes ingredients use in personal care products, detergents and cleaners, engineered polymers, lubricants and additives and other specialty chemicals markets.

Adams County has committed to infrastructure upgrades — including a liquid loading dock and improving an industrial water treatment plant on the former International Paper property — in connection with the Elevance project, but county officials have said they will not give the go-ahead for work until Elevance’s construction begins in earnest.

Rail upgrades connected with the project have already been completed.