The European Front
January 15, 2015
BY Tim Portz
With this issue of Pellet Mill Magazine, the title moves to a a six-issue per year, theme-based format. Our hope was that adding two issues to the editorial calendar would allow us to dive deeper into specific topic areas with each issue. The decision is already bearing fruit.
Katie Fletcher’s feature exploring Germany, Europe’s largest producer of wood pellets, likely would not have made the cut in a quarterly format. While incredibly interesting, the story likely would have had to make way for a story more directly connected to the issues that North American producers face daily. The article is a must-read, however, and our North American producer readers will recognize in it many of the same challenges they face here: securing feedstock, seeing demand come in fits and starts, and managing rising production costs.
Anna Simet’s story, “All That Glitters” juxtaposes the disparate experiences two North American producers have had folding foreign markets into their operational strategy. One, British Columbia’s Pinnacle Renewable Energy Group, made it central to theirs and haven’t looked back. Pinnacle CEO Rob McCurdy allows that playing in the export space isn’t easy, telling Simet, “There are so many pieces to it, and they all have to be done well.” In other instances, producers like Trae Fuels discover that domestic markets offer plenty of opportunity, free of the risk and uncertainty some producers experience in their earliest forays into foreign markets.
Finally, in my feature “A Dutch Dilemma”, I dig into the ongoing development of a pellet market in the Netherlands with equal parts promise and pause. The promise is easy enough to articulate. The Dutch, hoping to improve upon their relatively low levels of renewable energy production, have engineered a feed-in tarriff program that most analysts agree would create a 3.5 million-ton-annual pellet demand. The pause and uncertainty stem from an ongoing debate about the sustainability requirements the Dutch NGOs are endeavoring to drive into the regulatory aspects of this new program. North American producers stand by the sustainable nature of their forest management practices, but are leery of forest certification requirements, which add a layer of administrative cost that erodes already thin margins.
This issue of Pellet Mill Magazine clearly indicates that all producers, even those who have decided against selling into European markets, are impacted by the market dynamics and public debate unfolding there. We are wise to pay attention.
Advertisement
Tim Portz
VICE PRESIDENT OF CONTENT & EXECUTIVE EDITOR
tportz@bbiinternational.com
Advertisement
Upcoming Events
