Rupert Fraser, with his father Simon Fraser, founded and ran Fibrowatt Ltd, which built the world’s first three poultry litter-fired power stations during the 1990s. The $202 million debt financing has been arranged by McDonald Investments Inc (a subsidiary of Key Bank) with industry leading institutional investors.
Rupert Fraser, is CEO of Homeland Renewable Energy LLC. The financing has been structured as an investment grade vehicle (Fitch Rated BBB-/BB) packaged as a traditional sale-leaseback, with a property company purchasing the capital plant and leasing it back to Fibrominn, which will manage the construction and operation of the plant, under a long term lease. Six of the leading investing institutions in the power project finance market, led by the Prudential Capital Group and John Hancock Financial Services, have agreed to lend $202 million of rated debt back-to-back with the lease.
Full Notice to Proceed has been issued to the turnkey contractor, SNC-Lavalin of Canada. SNC has already commenced work on the site and it is anticipated that construction and commissioning will take approximately 30 months, with initial operation expected to commence in February 2007. The plant will generate its 55 MW from a total of about 700 000 tons/year of biomass fuels, around 90% of which will be poultry litter, generating electricity from a steam boiler turbo-generator combination.
Fibrominn LLC is wholly owned by Fibrowatt LLC of Philadelphia, which in turn is a 70% subsidiary of Homeland Renewable Energy LLC, the remaining 30% being held Fibrowatt Ltd, which is a subsidiary of Energy Power Resources Ltd. It is expected that the new plant will form the template for further plants to be built in intensive poultry-growing areas. Rupert Fraser and his team have been developing the project for the last 4 years, during which they have entered into a 21 year PPA with Northern States Power.
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