Wood-Pellet Maker Enviva Files for Bankruptcy

By Alexander Gladstone
The Wall Street Journal
March 13, 2024
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States, US East

Enviva, the largest U.S. wood-pellet exporter, filed for bankruptcy Tuesday after a bad bet on future prices of the commodity triggered nine-figure losses. The company filed a chapter 11 petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Eastern Virginia. Enviva… began building its manufacturing plants and export network in 2010 with financing from private-equity firm Riverstone. The company said last year that it had also been buying additional pellets and aiming to resell them for a profit, but that strategy backfired when pellet prices fell. Enviva was on the hook to pay $296.3 million for 800,000 metric tons of wood pellets that would only be worth $156.9 million on the open market. …Enviva enters bankruptcy with agreements with certain creditor groups to reduce debt by approximately $1 billion. One creditor group has provided a commitment to Enviva for $500 million in debtor-in-possession financing to fund the chapter 11 process. [to access the full story a WSJ subscription is required]

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