MINSK, 3 May (BelTA) – The National Agency of Investment and Privatization of Belarus would like foreign investors to build a wooden fuel pellet factory in Belarus, BelTA learned from the agency's website.
The factory is expected to make 170,000 tonnes of pellets per annum. The project's implementation is estimated to require about $55.2 million in investments.
Premises of the timber and furniture factory Ivatsevichdrev are offered for the project. The project provides for using the enterprise's spare premises to build the factory that will process Ivatsevichdrev's wooden byproducts such as bark, sawdust, and wooden chips. The factory is supposed to be fitted out with a cogeneration ORC plant that will boast an innovative drying technology and will reduce the cost of fuel and energy resources, said Yuri Nazarov, Chairman of the Belarusian timber, woodworking, pulp and paper industry concern Bellesbumprom.
The project's implementation will allow earning $23 million every year. Ivatsevichdrev has already found foreign partners, who are ready to buy the entire volume of fuel pellets. The logistic schemes have been worked out, too. The main advantages of the project will include the strategic geographical location, the availability of engineering and transport infrastructure as well as trained personnel and the high demand for the merchandise in Europe.
Fuel pellets are primarily used by cogeneration plants, boilers in industrial enterprises, and by the private sector. As far as Europe is concerned, Italy has the largest number of heating boilers in the private sector — about 740,000. Their number in Germany stands at 125,000. The UK is expected to become the top European consumer of this kind of fuel soon.
Experts believe that by 2020 Europe's annual demand for wooden pellets will be as high as 80-135 million tonnes. Only Germany can fully satisfy the domestic demand for fuel pellets at present. Other countries either import pellets or the raw materials to make them.
