Natchez-Adams County leaders hopeful company follows through with new billion-dollar refinery

NATCHEZ, Miss. –Local government leaders are expressing optimism that the much-planned and long-delayed biofuels refinery will actually be built at Adams County’s Belwood industrial site.

While plans were made public in 2017 for Velocys to start building the facility as early as 2018, expectations are now for a 2023 groundbreaking. The billion-dollar plant is projected to employ about 120 workers to process wood debris from area timberlands to convert into jet fuel.

Natchez-Adams County chief industrial recruiter Chandler Russ said local officials are “keeping our fingers crossed” this will happen as the project has recently gained new momentum.

“It’s a huge opportunity for us…. We’re excited about it,” said Russ, who’s executive director of Natchez Inc., the city-county economic development agency. He met Tuesday with the Adams County Board of Supervisors to provide an update about Velocys, the Oxford, England-based company that has selected the county-owned site by the Mississippi River to build its biofuels refinery.

In addition to employing about 120 people, the facility could spin-up about 350 indirect jobs and draw about 130 trucks a day to feed it the woody biomass waste it’s to process, Russ said. He also pointed to the potential tax revenues it could generate for local governments.

The refinery is to be located at the former Belwood country club and golf course the Adams County board purchased in 1998 — the year the country club closed — to accommodate industries. However, the flood-prone land has remained mostly vacant as supervisors failed to lure much business there the past 23 years.

The key to attracting Velocys is the levee being built to block the Mississippi River out of the 100-acre site the plant is to be located on.

Russ, Adams County board President Angela Hutchins and Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson last month joined Velocys executives to meet with Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves to discuss deals in the works to further accommodate the Adams County refinery, one of two the company has plans to develop for producing fuels that it says will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and exhaust pollutants from jet airliners. The other refinery is to be in the United Kingdom.

In a deal the Adams County Board of Supervisors made with the company in 2017, the county was to give Velocys the Belwood land along with $42 million in property tax breaks and another $4 million worth of site improvements. The Belwood levee has already been largely built with state and federal funds. The final $1 million was allocated by the state Legislature earlier this year for the levee’s completion.

KiOR — another biofuel production company — had an option to purchase some of Belwood several years ago. However, that fizzled. The Texas-based company went bankrupt in 2014.