It all began with a tiny, little bug. Well, really, it started with lot of tiny, little bugs – mountain pine beetles, to be exact. In 2007, with more than two million acres of trees dead or dying across Colorado and Wyoming, Confluence Energy (CE) founder and CEO Mark Mathis made a trip to the store to buy more pellets for his wood stove only to find the store was sold out. After learning from the store manager that there was a nationwide shortage of wood pellets, he wondered how that could possibly be, “I looked around at all the dead trees. In every catastrophe, there’s an opportunity.” That’s when he began the process of raising the capital and building a wood pellet mill. And, he never looked back.
The trucks began to roll out of Confluence Energy’s new, state-of-the-art wood pellet plant, the biggest pellet plant in the U.S. west of the Mississippi. We celebrated our inaugural shipment of wood pellets made from Colorado’s beetle kill trees in June of 2008.
As business grew, Confluence Energy diversified, to become a producer of a variety of bio-mass products made primarily from wood fiber. Our all natural product lines now include pet bedding, cat litter, absorbents, biomulch, biochar, other agricultural enhancements and a multitude of products and services for the oil and gas industry. In 2013, we acquired competitor Rocky Mountain Pellets to be able to provide a steady supply of quality wood fiber products to its customers.
Since CE began operations, we have maintained a commitment to provide at least half of our energy usage from our own production process through thermal energy utilization within the plants. That eliminates the requirement for additional fossil fuels to provide energy for the manufacturing process. Wherever possible, our decisions are made with the consideration of fighting climate change by producing environmentally sound products which preserve and improve the environment - driving the ecology of our economy.
We are a manufacturing company based in Kremmling, CO, who uses locally sourced biomass to produce products for individual, commercial, agricultural and industrial use. Regardless of the end use for our products, our goal is always to provide strong value for our customers, offering high quality materials and services. As we often say….many solutions, one call.
Our Sustainability Mission
At Confluence Energy, we are committed to protecting our planet Earth. We begin by utilizing local beetle-killed pine and other waste streams to produce our products, and we have created a sustainable, state-of-the-art manufacturing process. We are reducing our carbon footprint by 25% through the production of biochar, which sequesters carbon, and by deriving 50% our energy from renewable, biomass sources. Confluence Energy—making a green product even greener.
