COURTLAND—Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling will attend the groundbreaking for Enviva Courtland Pellets at 2 p.m. today, July 25, at the Turner Tract Industrial Park.

Enviva paid $1.5 million for 139 acres at the Southampton County-owned industrial park off Rose Valley Road and will invest $91 million for its plant. The company expects to create 72 jobs that pay an average of $37,000 a year.

The Bethesda, Md., company is also building a wood pellet plant in Northampton County, N.C., and in November opened one in Ahoskie, N.C., at the former Georgia Pacific location. The pellets are being shipped to Europe for heating fuel.

At the current tax rates, the county will make $7.2 million by 2023 from Enviva from the sale of the property and from taxes. The county financed the sale with a no-interest loan to Enviva with no payments for two years. Annual payments will be $301,383 for five years.

Construction is expected to take 18 months and be completed for a late 2013 startup.