VANCOUVER, BC - Viridis Energy Inc., a manufacturer and exporter of wood pellets plans to upgrade its Scotia Atlantic Biomass subsidiary with a newly awarded Capital Investment Incentive of up to $517,520 from the government of Nova Scotia.

Viridis said it will immediately use some of the incentive's proceeds to upgrade Scotia Atlantic production operations, including the purchase of a truck dumper with a 6,200-cubic-foot hopper and an Intalogix weigh scale to improve unloading of wood fiber that could help improve the amount of fiber delivered by each truck load by up to 40 percent.

Viridis purchased the Scotia Atlantic pellet mill in February 2012 and re-started ts operations last fall. The vast majority of wood pellets produced at the plant, which has an annual production capacity of 120,000 tons, are exported to Europe.

Publicly-traded Viridis posted revenues of $13.9 million in 2013, up 46 percent over that of 2012. The company attributed this sales improvement to strengthened market dynamics, including improved pricing, increased demand in Europe, the achievement of production capacity goals at its Okanagan, BC, pellet plant and the addition of production from the Scotia Atlantic Biomass facilities.