Ports shape up to ship out.

• Position: Eastern

PORT OF WILMINGTON The $40 million terminal, scheduled to open January 2015, will ship pellets made at two mills Enviva plans to build in southeastern North Carolina. (It has yet to announce where.) The Raleigh News & Observer reports that the terminal will handle a million tons a year, but the company won't confirm that figure. The lease is for 21 years. It will support 150 jobs.

U.S. mills produced 3 million tons of wood pellets in 2009, according to forestry experts at N.C. State University. The state ports in Morehead City and Wilmington should soon be able to ship more than half of that themselves. In October, the Council of State approved an agreement that allows San Diego-based International WoodFuels LLC, which is building a wood-pellet mill in Wilson County, to erect a terminal at Port of Morehead City capable of receiving, storing and loading 600,000 tons each year. That follows the June sanction of a proposed terminal at Port of Wilmington for Bethesda, Md.-based Enviva LP (Regional Report, January). The pellets will be shipped to power plants in Europe, where government policies for reducing carbon emissions have created a rising market for biomass fuel.

AHOSKIE Enviva's $60 million Hertford County mill opened this year, employs 79 and is projected to produce 500,000 tons a year. It exports pellets through the company's Chesapeake, Va., terminal.

GARYSBURG The $52 million Enviva mill in Northampton...