Incident at Enviva terminal in Virginia

Local press reported 28 February that a fire had started at Enviva’s Chesapeake, Virginia deep-water marine terminal. The company reports that the fire is now under control.

Onsite personnel, the terminal’s fire suppression systems and emergency services fought the blaze. No injuries have been reported.

According to a release from the local fire department, responders were called at 11PM and found the fire in ‘a complex conveyor system that extended into control rooms at the top of both 200ft tall storage domes’. Conventional techniques to fight the fire were not effective due to the height of the structure. Almost 60 firefighters attended the scene. The cause of the fire has not yet been determined.

Enviva released a statement 1 March saying that it plans to use alternate storage facilities, including its deep-water marine terminal in Wilmington, North Carolina, while the Chesapeake terminal is returned to operation.

The incident may affect the timing of shipments; Enviva expects the costs associated with the fire to impact this quarter’s financial results. The company does not expect the fire to affect its full 2018 earnings, depending on insurance pay-outs.