Wood pellets represented a 6.9% share of the heat source of the residential buildings in 2013.
Prices in the industrial pellet markets have remained rather unchanged. The extreme weather conditions in North America have not been showing in the prices of industrial pellets in Europe, although pellet producers have been facing problems in their operations and supply.
Consolidation is going on in the Nordic pellet business as Neova (a subsidiary of the Finnish Vapo Group) and Swedish Lantmännen Agroenergi are merging their wood pellet businesses to create Sweden’s leading company in wood pellet solutions. New capacity will be coming on stream in South-Eastern Estonia where As Granuul Invest is about to start building a 250 000 tpa pellet plant.
Winter has continued mild also in February in central and northern Europe. Pellet warehouses have been full and traders have been eager to lower the inventory levels before the end of the heating season. The PIX Pellet Continental Europe (medium scale use) benchmark went down 42 cents, or by 0.16%, closing at 255.03 EUR/ton. This is 4.9% higher than at the same time a year ago.