Getting the tool kit right is a critical element to a successful contracting business. Axcor Renewable Energy Inc., based in Buctouche, New Brunswick, provides biomass grinding, as well as chipping, to supply wood pellet producers, delivering to customers in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Maine, and knows all about the right tool kit, with its carefully selected equipment line-up.

Axcor was founded by Denis Cormier in 2013. The business was essentially a continuation of a biomass production business established in 2005 by his father Delphis Cormier, founder of the Delco Forest Products sawmill in West Branch, New Brunswick.

Axcor grinds wood biomass on harvest sites and in mill yards, loading it into tractor trailers to deliver to biomass consumers, including the Twin River pulp mill in Edmundston, where the biomass is burned to generate electricity and process steam for operations. Axcor also chips hardwood harvest residue for delivery to the Shaw wood pellet plant in Belledune, New Brunswick.

Since its incorporation in 2015, Axcor has developed efficient systems for processing and transporting mill yard residues and roadside forestry fibre, but still required a machine to efficiently move fibre on forestry operations to the grinders without spill, and which would adapt to collecting harvest debris and slash from harvest trails.

Gary Bastarache was one of the first employees of Axcor when it was established. He maintains a very busy work schedule, managing and supervising grinding, chipping, forwarding and trucking the biomass.

Bastarache explained, “More and more we are finding ourselves in the woods grinding on harvest sites. We have also worked on a lot of land clearing projects for blueberry developments. We do a lot of grinding roadside, processing tops, limbs and debris from forestry operations.”

Grinding biomass on forestry operations requires that they have a machine to carry diverse materials to where the grinder is situated, he says. “Logging debris ranges from short blocks of wood to full tree lengths. We have experimented with a variety of forwarder conversions, but there was always debris falling out and dropping on the road, which is unacceptable for traffic using the road.”

“We needed a machine with a solid basket and the ability to pick up and carry any size of tree section,” he added.

The answer to that specialized machine came about through conversations with the ALPA Equipment sales team and the engineering and the fabrication team at ALPA’s sister company, A. Landry Fabrication, in Eel River Crossing, New Brunswick.

Axcor had discussed with ALPA sales reps Jessy Roy and Marc Willet their requirements for a biomass forwarder.

“ALPA and Axcor sat down with our team and we discussed their needs in some detail, and then we came up with a plan,” explained Sebastien Firth, Production Manager with A. Landry Fabrication.

The base machine was a Ponsse Buffalo King, which has an eighteen-tonne capacity. “The idea was to build a cargo structure with hinged panels that would open to a total width of nineteen feet, then close to a vertical position for traveling,” says Firth. “To construct the biomass forwarder, the wood hauling rack was removed from the forwarder and a new basket fabricated with solid bottom and walls, and frames to position hydraulic cylinders and hinges to mount the panels.”

Firth says that there were no modifications to the Buffalo King hydraulics, save for controls to open and close the panels. The Buffalo King’s log grapple was replaced with a material handling grapple manufactured by Rotobec.

On site, the Ponsse Buffalo was handling roadside ‘rail delimber’ tops. The wall wings are opened to lay horizonal to ground for loading, then tip hydraulically to vertical, to enclose the material and then travel at “normal width”, to pile down the material for the grinder. The panels are not designed to compress biomass, but rather form a box to load into, with the loader adding compression to pack the load.

For in-woods harvest trail slash recovery, the wall wings would typically remain vertical, especially in partial cut stands. Maintaining wall wings up is also critical for machine stability in rough terrain.

The forwarder’s log loader was continually packing the slash down as the load was built. Bastarache figures the average forwarder load of slash amounts to twelve to fourteen tonnes, but added that load volume varies depending on the type of slash or debris, and its moisture content (age since harvest).

When unloading, the opened panels allow the operator to grapple the material quickly and effectively.

In terms of its toolkit, or equipment history, immediately following its incorporation Axcor went to work with a Morbark tub grinder, grinding wood debris, primarily in millyards. The ground fibre was conveyed directly into trailers for delivery to a variety of businesses to energize steam plants.

In 2023, Axcor made major investments with the purchase of two CBI machines. The 6400 model can be switched for either grinding biomass or chipping logs to supply pellet manufacturers.

The 6800 CBI works only grinding biomass destined mainly to customers generating steam for electricity generation and manufacturing processes.

In forestry operations, harvest residue is forwarded to either of the CBI units, and piled down roadside. In turn, the harvest residue is fed into the CBI machines by an excavator. The excavator operator controls the CBI functions by remote control. In some circumstances, the CBI’s will track themselves where residue is piled densely along a road.

Bastarache shared that the CBI machines are highly productive and have an intuitive maintenance schedule.

“We have had great dealer support and we are very happy with the performance of our CBI machines,” he said. Frontline Machinery is the New Brunswick dealer for CBI equipment.

Axcor’s equipment inventory includes four Liebherr excavators and one Develon excavator, all in twenty and twenty-five tonne capacity. The excavators are equipped with Rotobec material grapples to load logs, slash and debris into the grinders, and clam buckets to load biomass off the ground into tractor trailers.

Axcor operates six tractor trailers and hires additional trucks as required. The fleet typically counts around 15 trucks in total. Axcor operates both live bottom and chip trailers. Hired trucks provide their own trailers.

Several Axcor drivers are trained and qualified to operate excavators to load their own truck—they also stand in to load trucks operated by drivers not qualified to operate excavators.

“We grind biomass on the roadside, around the clock sometimes, so often it makes sense to drop it on the ground and then reload it whenever trucks get to the site,” says Bastarache. “Sometimes, we will load trucks directly out of the grinders. It all depends on the site, the supply, the destination and truck availability.”

In terms of sites a bit further away, in 2022-2023 they spent about half-a-year on Prince Edward Island grinding tree sections, stumps and debris that came about as a result of Hurricane Fiona. That biomass was trucked to Port Hawkesbury Paper in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

The Buffalo King biomass forwarder operator, Issac Davenport-Francis, came to Axcor with experience operating a Ponsse Wisent in commercial thinning operations. He pointed out that it was a smooth move to operating the Buffalo King, saying it is a similar machine, with similar layout of controls, and more power and load capacity. He allowed that the Rotobec bypass material handling grapple is a change from a log grapple, and slash and wood debris is a new challenge compared to piled logs.

“This work has a bunch of different challenges from logs, and I learn different tricks as I go,” says Davenport-Francis. “There is a system to untangling piled tops, and handling those big, crooked, hardwood tops.”

“We have had great production with the Buffalo King and we have witnessed virtually no mechanical issues,” summarized Bastarache. “We can move any kind of logging slash or debris effectively, and what we load makes it to the grinders. There is no need to patrol the route to pick up debris that has fallen onto the road.”

Company owner Denis Cormier commented that he is very optimistic for growth and technical development in biomass production and markets in New Brunswick (please see sidebar story on page 25).

“Axcor is well situated to grow with the biomass industries and we have a very strong team working to make Axcor a strong biomass services provider.”

 

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