Green energy investor Libra is offloading its other interests to focus on its wood waste-to-energy operations in North America, and is undergoing a name change to FibreGen to reflect this.

The company owns two facilities in British Columbia, Canada, which from this year onwards will produce 131,500 tons of wood pellets and shavings per annum, and a wood chipper in the state of Virginia where production capacity is being expanded to 183,000 tons. Another pellet producer, based in the US Pacific Northwest, was acquired this April in a move adding 128,000 tons of annual capacity and turning the group into the globe's sixth largest producer – the aim is to produce 1.5m tons by the end of 2009.

Libra's revenues come from retail and commercial customers, which burn the wood for heat, since it is cheaper than coal and natural gas. Furthermore, the company ships to Europe to sate demand from coal-burning power stations that need to burn a percentage of biomass under environmental stipulations. A recent joint venture was agreed in China and as it is ‘going well’ it could soon be extended from one power plant to 17, with Libra taking 25% of the equity and carbon credit rights.

Results for 2007 show turnover swelled 313% to £9.7m, with operating losses increased to £1.2m, although the post-tax loss on the biomass business narrowed three-quarters to £96,000. Cash of £1.9m remained at year-end.

New chief executive Glenn Smith sees ‘superior returns’ and the ability to ‘aggressively’ scale the business ‘vertically’, by moving upstream into the ownership of wood-growing assets and downstream to taking shares in biomass power production. The time is ripe, he stresses, as ‘first-mover’ advantage will allow the group to secure these assets or agreements more easily.

Libra, whose green credentials are good, as all wood input is derived from logging and other wood-related waste, all of which are from sustainable forests, could attract fans.

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