It may have been in the 90s Friday in Livingston for the announcement of a new $175 million wood pellet plant in Sumter County, but the weather didn’t matter to Livingston Mayor Tom Tartt.

“When I heard about a $100 million yearly impact, I got chill bumps,” he said. “Can you imagine what that will mean for this community?”

Biofuel company Enviva Friday announced it will build a wood pellet production plant at the Port of Epes, bringing at least 85 jobs and 180 associated jobs in logging, transportation and local services to the Black Belt county.

Enviva, which calls itself the world’s largest supplier of wood pellets, will ship the product down the Tenn-Tom waterway to markets through Pascagoula, Miss., and on to Europe and Asia. The pellets are in high demand as an alternative fuel to coal. Enviva owns and operates eight plants in the South, producing more than 3.5 million metric tons of wood pellets each year.

The Sumter County plant, projected to finish construction in 2021, will initially produce 700,000 metric tons of pellets annually, though production could eventually be increased to 1.15 million tons per year. It will use a mix of softwood and scrap from mills sourced from within a 75-mile radius.

The company does not own forestland but works with suppliers meeting sustainability criteria, it says. That includes a proprietary monitoring system to verify and document the source of its wood. Enviva says it sources wood from “responsibly managed” forests and has policies preventing it from using wood from high conservation value bottomland forests.

Enviva Chairman and CEO John Keppler said at the announcement that every ton of pellets the plant would manufacture “had already been sold.”

“Our business model is to enter into very long-term contracts with major utilities around the world,” Keppler said. “So every bit of volume that we produce has already been sold.”

And it could be the first of other facilities. Enviva is looking at creating other pellet plants in Mississippi and Alabama, and a future deep-water marine terminal at the Port of Pascagoula. Earlier this year, Enviva announced a $140 million pellet mill in Lucedale, Miss., and a $60 million ship-loading terminal at the port.

The company plans to hire well in advance of the Epes plant opening, and hiring will also take place for suppliers and other associated jobs.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Alabama ranks among the top five states for electricity generation from biomass, with about 2 percent of total generation, with almost all of it is from wood and wood-derived fuels. More than two-thirds of Alabama is covered by forests, which makes it the third-largest timberland acreage among the lower 48 states.

Alabama is currently home to at least four biomass plants, mostly using hard and softwood, according to Biomass Magazine. That includes Selma’s Zilkha Biomass Energy, which moved into the former Dixie Pellets plant, which it bought out of bankruptcy in 2010. Together, the plants produce about 600,000 tons annually.

Keppler said the project has been in development for several years, but locating in Sumter County became one possible option for the company about a year ago. University of West Alabama President Ken Tucker said university representatives, community leaders and state officials worked for more than a year and half to bring the project home.

The announcement drew loud praise from the crowd Friday, with Sumter County Commission Chair Marcus Campbell urging attendees to go “find somebody to high five.” Epes Mayor Walter Porter lauded “good paying jobs - no more $7 an hour.”

“People will gain the chance to make a good living, put food on their table, buy a good home, and maybe even send their children to college,” Porter said.

The reaction made an impression on Keppler.

“This is what brought us to West Alabama,” he said. “Look at what this could do for the community. We’re going to be here for a very long time.”