The repair of the Baie-Comeau Papetière is advancing in small steps. Noderra, the Quebec subsidiary of BMI Group, must still carry out several environmental work before starting a real project on the building, bought last December.
Characterization studies, transmission to the Ministry of the Environment, development of a rehabilitation plan; These are the steps that await in the coming months NODERRA. We can’t change the site before that
underlines its managing director, Frédéric Alain.
He expects to receive indications from Quebec at the beginning of 2026 and to be able to start rehabilitation work in the spring.
Until then, Noderra will continue to meet companies likely to be interested in being part of its businesses. Mr. Alain, in an interview on the program Hello coastdoes not specify their number or their identity.
However, he recognizes that the projects wanting to settle in the old Papetière will have to take two important stages beforehand, that is to say feasibility studies and the granting of energy by Quebec.
To this end, even if the site has a capacity of 125 MWaccording to Frédéric Alain, each project will have to make their own requests to the government. There is an established process and everyone must go through him
he notes.
The site of the old Papetière has many attractions, underlines the managing director. Its large area of 731,000 square feet, a railway and its proximity to the port of Baie-Comeau are in particular.
So there are still a lot of uncertainties around this project. Last week, an important partner, Northern Graphite, questioned the future of his graphite processing plant in Baie-Comeau, for lack of investments.
Mr. Alain assures that this project is not dead and that Noder will keep hope of finding a major industrial partner. What we want is to use the site as much as possible, these are projects that would have benefits for Baie-Comeau
he says.
According to an interview with Catherine Paquette
