This 24th of April saw the launch of the construction project for a pioneering industrial facility, unique in France: the FICA HPCI. It is the first plant that will produce new-generation biofuel HPCI® Black Pellets and will be combined with a biomass cogeneration plant at the Pomacle-Bazancourt bioeconomy site near Reims.
NEOMA Business School was represented by Pascal Choquet, director of the Reims campus, and Stéphane Lhuillery, head of the chair in Industrial Bioeconomy at NEOMA BS. The other chairs from AgroParistech, CentraleSupélec and the URCA, who are partners with the NEOMA BS chair in research and education at the European Centre for Biotechnologies and Bioeconomics (CEBB) in Pomacle-Bazancourt were also in attendance.

The first stone was actually a first tree planted by the appointed members, stakeholders and partners who came together on the site to mark the start of construction on this new-generation plant, which by the end of 2020, will produce wooden pellets that are capable of replacing coal.

The project managers estimate that when construction is finished, the Pomacle-Bazancourt facility will employee 40 people, and the activity produced will contribute to the creation of an additional 310 jobs in the biomass sector in France’s Grand-Est region. This new stage further consolidates the economic importance of the Pomacle-Bazancourt site and the various connections between its players in the value chain.