Video: Biofuels Company Has Eye on Amory

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AMORY, Miss. (WCBI) — Amory may be the next home to a growing biofuels company.

Aldermen have authorized Mayor Brad Blalock to sign a purchase agreement for 90 acres at Amory’s North Port. The land purchase would be part of a deal for Texas-based Zilkha Biomass Energy to invest $100 million and create 50 or more jobs.

City leaders and the company say talks are ongoing and a number of contract details still must be worked out before anything is finalized.

The plant would turn wood byproducts into a new kind of wood pellet to be burned as a coal alternative. The company has plants in Texas, is about to open one in Selma, Ala. and announced plans in July for another in Arkansas.

The company is owned by an 87-year-old native of Iraq who grew up in Egypt and later immigrated to the United States. He has his son have made millions in a popular British retail chain and then in wind energy before selling that company ahd developing a new wood-based pellet the company says is more fuel efficient than current pellets on the market, is more similar to coal and eliminates many of the problems current pellets have with dust and transportation.