Find the full article here: The Cargo Not Taken: How Licella and Shell are unlocking stranded feedstocks : The Daily Digest
Forests require active management to remain healthy and reduce wildfire risk, yet the thinnings and residues this produces have long had nowhere to go. Traditional timber, pulp, and paper markets cannot absorb irregular, dispersed woody material, leaving forest operators with a liability rather than an asset. Waste plastics present the same structural problem: mixed, end-of-life packaging that conventional recycling cannot process accumulates as cost rather than value. In both cases, the feedstock owner holds the problem, and that is precisely where Licella’s Catalytic Hydrothermal Reactor (Cat-HTR) technology begins. Operating in supercritical water, Cat-HTR converts biomass or mixed plastics into stable, energy-dense biocrude in minutes.
The Arbios Chuntoh Ghuna facility in Prince George, BC is a direct expression of this approach, designed to convert 25,000 dry tonnes of forest residue into approximately 50,000 barrels of renewable bio-oil annually. Similar models are advancing in Japan, where domestic forest residues are being explored as feedstock for sustainable aviation fuel, and across the plastics sector through partnerships with Dow, Amcor, and Mura Technology. Meanwhile, refining systems have advanced to handle more oxygenated, variable feedstocks, meaning the gap between biocrude production and refinery integration is closing from both sides. The result is a system that is not just improving; it is transforming, as feedstock, technology, and market alignment finally come together at scale.
Click here to find out more about a project Arbios is working on with the Lheidli T’enneh Nation, LTN Contracting and Canfor on evaluating slash as a feedstock for the Chuntoh Ghuna facility in Prince George.