BETHESDA, MD.--Enviva Inc. (NYSE: EVA) (“Enviva,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) today provided a business update announcing a memorandum of understanding (“MOU”) with Enviva’s first U.S.-based customer, and detailing plans to significantly accelerate its capital expansion timeline due to recent commercial momentum with power and heat generators and with industrials in hard-to-abate sectors. The business update also included preliminary 2021 financial results.

Highlights:

· Announced plans to accelerate doubling of production capacity over the next five years, including bringing forward plans for a third plant in the Pascagoula, Mississippi cluster as well as additional plants around Savannah, Georgia and in the mid-Atlantic regions, with capability to build and commission two plants per year, up from one per year
· Signed MOU with Enviva’s first U.S.-based customer, to develop a supply chain strategy to support the customer’s biofuel refining facilities in the Southeast U.S. and potentially California
· Announced plans to evaluate building production capacity in California, potentially utilizing fiber in high-hazard zones to mitigate devastating wildfire risk and improve climate benefits of forests in the West
· Announced first shipment of wood pellets to Germany serving emerging industrial and other adjacent use cases
· Updated customer sales pipeline to more than $40 billion with the addition of the U.S. customer MOU and recently announced J-Power MOU
· Provided preliminary 2021 financial results
· Finalized Green Finance Framework and received independent Second Party Opinion (“SPO”) from S&P Global confirming alignment with green bond and green loan principles

“We are extremely excited about the growth in Enviva’s business and our first MOU with a U.S. customer,” said John Keppler, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Enviva. “Efforts around the world to decarbonize in order to meet net zero by 2050 continue to accelerate, giving companies like ours the tremendous opportunity to grow even more rapidly and expand the global supply chain as necessary to continue to facilitate the energy transition and mitigate the greenhouse gas emissions profile of hard-to-abate industries such as steel, cement, lime, and biofuels, including sustainable aviation fuels. We are very proud to now be in a position to not only export the sustainable, renewable energy and low-carbon feedstock we produce in the Southeastern United States, but to combat both climate change and devastating wildfire risks by expanding the long-term contracted use of our products and growing our customer and production footprint right here at home in the broader U.S.”

Contracting Update

Today, Enviva announced the signing of an MOU with a U.S.-based cleantech company to co-develop a supply chain strategy for advanced, low-carbon transportation fuels, including sustainable aviation fuel (“SAF”), with a focus on the customer’s operations in the U.S. Southeast and potentially California. Under the MOU, the customer’s refining process will convert Enviva’s woody biomass into a drop-in replacement for crude oil used for producing aviation fuel.

Enviva’s current operations and numerous potential development sites in the U.S. Southeast position it to co-develop alongside the SAF refining capacity the customer intends to construct in the region. California is another jurisdiction where Enviva is evaluating plans to build one or more facilities with the intent of utilizing low-grade wood fiber from high-hazard zones in the state both to mitigate devastating wildfire risk in the region and tackle the negative effects of climate change globally.

This latest MOU represents not only the second industrial agreement Enviva has recently signed, but also Enviva’s second agreement related to SAF, which we believe underscores the demand momentum for low-carbon transportation fuels.

We recently announced our first shipment to Germany to serve its emerging industrial market (including steel and cement) and other adjacent use cases (such as lime, a key input in cement manufacturing) that are progressing through the phases of design, development, and application, as industrial companies pursue not only their own net-zero goals, but also fulfill the increasing demand for greener products from their own customers.

As of January 1, 2022, Enviva’s total weighted-average remaining term of executed long-term take-or-pay off-take contracts is approximately 14.5 years, with a total contracted revenue backlog of over $21 billion. This contracted revenue backlog is complemented by a customer sales pipeline exceeding $40 billion, which includes contracts in various stages of negotiation. Enviva’s customer sales pipeline consists of the U.S.-based MOU, the previously announced J-Power MOU, and other long-term off-take opportunities in our traditional markets for biomass-fired power and heat generation in geographies ranging from the United Kingdom to the European Union (including emerging opportunities in Germany and Poland), to Asia (including incremental demand in Japan, emerging potential in Taiwan, and maturing opportunities in South Korea), as well as in developing industrial segments across the globe (including steel, cement, lime, chemicals, SAF, and biodiesel). We are negotiating long-term wood pellet supply contracts with several leading industrial companies in each of these difficult-to-abate sectors that are actively and urgently pursing large-scale decarbonization. Over the next 12 months, we expect to progress negotiations and convert several sales pipeline opportunities into binding contracts, including MOUs.

Asset Expansion Update

In response to the increasing pace and scale of commercial progress, Enviva is accelerating its plans to double its production capacity over the next 5 years, from 6.2 million metric tons per year (“MTPY”) to approximately 13 million MTPY. To capitalize on this momentum, Enviva is broadening and deepening its development capabilities and leveraging relationships with key equipment suppliers and construction partners to enable it to build and commission two plants per year, up from its historical rate of one plant per year. Enviva plans to continue utilizing its “build and copy” approach to plant design while increasing the nameplate production capacity of its new plants to approximately 1.1 million MTPY, up roughly 45% from the previous standard of 750,000 MTPY.

Consistent with prior updates, we expect Enviva’s previously announced “Multi-Plant Expansions” to be completed by year-end 2022. Enviva also expects its plant in Lucedale, Mississippi, which is the first plant in its Pascagoula cluster, to ramp production throughout 2022, exiting the year at its designed run-rate of 750,000 MTPY. Additionally, in the first half of 2022, we plan to commence construction of the fully contracted plant in Epes, Alabama, the second plant in the Pascagoula cluster.

Our business model of fully contracting plants before commencing construction remains unchanged. Given the current pace of contracting with customers, Enviva plans to accelerate the construction of a third wood pellet production plant in its Pascagoula cluster in 2023, along with other proposed plants in the Savannah and mid-Atlantic regions. Additionally, we plan to commence and complete the fully-permitted 300,000 MTPY expansion of our Lucedale plant during 2023, which will increase its nameplate production capacity from the current 750,000 MTPY to approximately 1 million MTPY.

In 2024, we plan to place both the proposed third and fourth Pascagoula cluster plants in service and begin construction on two additional plants expected to be located in our Savannah, Georgia and Wilmington, North Carolina clusters.

In 2025, we expect all of our Pascagoula cluster plants will be operating at their full run-rate, in addition to having the new Savannah cluster plant in service. We expect construction of our proposed Wilmington cluster plant and Chesapeake cluster plant to be underway.

In 2026, we expect to have both proposed Wilmington and Chesapeake plants in service, with the proposed Savannah plant and Lucedale expansion ramping to full run-rate by the end of the year.

In total, we plan to place six plants in service over the next 5 years and expect that the construction and commissioning of new plants with a nameplate capacity of 1.1 million MTPY will take up to 18 months, on average, and cost between $200 million and $250 million, with total capital expenditures spanning nine quarters. Each plant is designed to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for an average of 350 days per year when accounting for scheduled maintenance days.