Sonoco will invest $100 million over the next three years to build a biomass boiler and make other improvements at its Hartsville, SC plant site. The $75 million biomass facility will replace two aging coal-fired boilers that have been in use at the plant for 60 years, according to Sonoco President and Chief Operating Officer Jack Sanders.

Construction of the facility is expected to continue into July 2013, and the plans are to put the plant into operation by the fourth quarter of 2013. Once in operation, the new biomass facility should save Sonoco about $14 million in its annual operating costs, Sanders says.

The new boiler will be fueled primarily by woody biomass created by regional logging activity. Sonoco will purchase more than 400,000 tons annually of bio material and will consume about 65 truckloads of material daily. The boiler will produce 16 MW that will be consumed by the manufacturing complex, as well as steam that is used in the paper making process.

Sonoco’s Hartsville complex operates three paper mills that produce various grades of uncoated recycled paperboard from seven different paper machines. The state Coordinating Council for Economic Development approved a rural infrastructure grant of $100,000 to assist in improving roads that will be used by trucks going to and from the new facility.