EDITOR’S NOTE: A KiOR Spokesman said the numbers reflected in this article are based on Carter’s own estimates and are not necessarily representative of the company’s future consumption. The spokesman said KiOR has stated that they expect the Natchez facility to consume 500 bone dry tons of biomass per day, and the company has not yet estimated numbers of jobs related to its Natchez development.

NATCHEZ — A representative of biofuels company KiOR will be in Adams County in mid-May to meet with local timber industry players about what KiOR will need in the supply chain to its announced Natchez facility.

KiOR’s mid-south fiber supply manager, Roy West, will meet with local producers at the county extension service office May 14, Adams County Extension Service Director David Carter said.

“We know about the economic impact KiOR will have, and what we want to know about now is the forestry impact,” Carter said. “A lot of times the people who are working in the fields don’t get the information from the chain as it is dispersed, so they can come here and get the information themselves.”

The meeting is open to landowners, foresters and others who have an interest in the local timber industry, Carter said, and it should help them plan for future work with the biofuels company.

“We are going to hear directly from KiOR what are their expectations,” he said.

To ensure space requirements can be satisfied, Carter said those interested in attending the meeting should RSVP by calling the extension service office at 601-445-8201.

KiOR announced in late March that it would be building a biofuels facility on the site of the former Belwood Country Club. The process KiOR will employ there uses non-food stock such as wood chips.

During the announcement, which was made during the company’s fourth quarter investors’ conference call, KiOR CEO Fred Cannon said Natchez’s proximity to wood production areas was a critical component of the company’s decision to locate in the area.

Carter said KiOR is expected to consume 2 million tons of timber annually.

“That comes to approximately 74,000 truck loads a year, and to do that it is going to take approximately 92 logging crews to handle that truck load,” Carter said.

“The average log crew is four men, so it is going to be approximately 368 jobs to supply all that wood.”

The KiOR process uses what would otherwise be waste wood, for example, treetops, cut-offs and cull trees, Carter said. Ultimately, that will also have positive effects on the timber industry.

“It won’t be using the good saw logs,” he said. “It will be using a lot of our lower quality waste wood, so by using that wood it will actually improve our harvest of the good wood.”