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French company DRT announces plans for U.S.-based biorefinery

| By Mary Bailey

DRT (Dax, France; www.drt.fr) a specialist in processing rosin and turpentine oil distilled from pine resin, has purchased land in Georgia, which marks the first step of its move across the Atlantic.

To meet growing demand from international markets, and with the aim of working closer to supply sources, DRT has decided to build a new sulfate turpentine biorefinery and terpene derivatives production unit in the U.S. The project is now taking shape with the purchase of land in Effingham County, Georgia.

DRT, which plans to start operating the new unit during the first half of 2017, will commence the building work shortly and is in the process of forming a forty-strong operational team within DRT America.

The new production unit will enable DRT to distill sulfate turpentine that is sourced locally in the U.S., free up its own refinery capacity at its French plant in Vielle-Saint-Girons (and therefore increase its supplies from existing European pulp and paper producers, in particular its Scandinavian suppliers), and better serve its existing markets and develop new products for the fragrance and terpene resin industries.