Two wood fuel pellet mini-plants are being established in Belarus

By the end of the year, within the branch of forestry two mini-plants producing timber fuel pellets are to appear. They are being established on the bases of Zhitkovichi and Stolbtsy forestry farms. This is a totally new field for the industry, and if the projects turn out successful, similar enterprises will be established in every region.
The idea of creating biofuel manufactures is sped up by the high demand for it in the European market and the possibility to profitably export it. With the average price being 100 Euro per ton of pellets, the two mini-plants will annually yield 1.4 million Euro of export revenues for the republic, and about 150,000 Euro of taxes to the budget. According to expert estimates, the annual fuel pellet consumption in the world grows by at least 15-17%. The companies offering mills to produce pellets are quoting from the existent pellet plants in Russia, where profitability exceeds 100%.
Pellet manufacturing in Belarus so far is the domain of a few private companies. According to their owners, the development of this field in the country is being held off by the technological complexity of production and the high quality requirement to the raw materials. Equipment manufacturers disagree, suggesting the companies say that to stave off potential competitors. Whatever it is, the main complication when organizing pellet production is the lack of experience inside Belarus and the controversy of the information spreading. This is why the project in Zhitkovichi and Stolbtsy are in many ways experimental.
Last week, the experimental Stolbtsy forestry farm received its first truck of equipment from Pskov. The procurement tender was won by the Russian LLC SPiKo. Apart from manufacturing and rigging up the equipment, the company experts must test-run it, and conduct a two-week training for personnel. The mini-plant is located in the territory of the timber-processing workshop of the farm. It will comprise raw-material storage, sawdust drying and milling lines, a pellet packaging line and a warehouse. As far as the plan goes, the manufacture should be ready by the end of this year. There were some complications during the tender and the loan issuance. Over six months were spent on this important preparatory phase. But the farm expects to finish all work on time, and run their first pellet batch by the end of this year.
The pellets will be produced around the clock at the rate of one ton per hour. It is about 500 tons a month or 5,000 tons a year. The plant is a smaller one according to European standards. But if we take into account that the production should be uninterrupted, and that each ton of pellets requires 5 cubic meters of bulk sawdust, it will not be so easy to provide the supply of raw materials. At present, the timber processing workshop in Stolbtsy produces about 500 cubic meters of sawdust and the same volume of cutting. This is exactly half of what is needed. The remaining volumes of sawdust are planned to be purchased from the neighboring Uzdensk, Kopylye and Negorelye experimental research forestry farms. Besides, the Stolbtsy workshop plans to produce new types of sawed wood, thus increasing processing volumes. But there are some difficulties in providing the manufacture with the raw materials, since considerable volumes of timber are allocated to the construction and budgetary organizations of the district at subsidized prices. If the plans to extend the workshop are fulfilled, apart from the increase in the volume of goods produced there will be a rise in the volume of sawdust and other wastage, which is the raw material for pellets.
According to workshop’s headmaster Vasily Deychik, once the milling line is launched, the timber processing at Stolbtsy will become completely zero-waste. Today, experts are seeking potential buyers for the fuel pellets in the European market. The suggested sales price is 100-120 Euro a ton. The production costs as stipulated in the business plan are at 35-40 Euro per ton.
Farm’s chief engineer Sergey Chemko thinks there could be problems with the quality of raw materials once the line is launched. The milling technology does not allow for larger chips or big bulks of bark. There is a debarking line running in the Stolbtsy workshop, but avoiding instances of larger pieces in the waste without sifting is fairly complicated. Besides, certain part of sawdust will have to be bought from other forestry farms, which are so far inexperienced in supplying mills.
Creating timber fuel enterprises is stipulated in the State complex program of modernization of manufacturing assets of the Belarus energy system, energy supply and of increasing the share of the internal fuel and energy resources used in 2006-2010. For the current year, it is planned to establish in the forestry farms 18 chip plants with the total capacity of 58,000 cubic meters. To provide large energy assets with fuel, the Forestry Ministry made the decision to build in 2007 seven fuel chip production units similar to the mini-TPP of Osipovichi and Vileye forestry farm. The technology used at the Vileye forestry farm is planned as basis in the farms in Pruzhansk, Gorodok, Mozyrsk, Dyatlov, Berezinsk and Goretsy.
Evgeny Zhibul, Belarus Forestry Newspaper