Where do your wood pellets come from?

Wood pellets are made in several places around Britain, and in many countries around the world.

Forever Fuels aims to support local production wherever possible. But we do not lower the bar for these producers. All producers must meet our high quality-standards, and must be able to supply at a price that does not increase costs to our customers. And we must be certain that we always have plenty of suitable pellets to satisfy our customers' demands. We therefore also contract with large-scale pellet-producers to ensure we have a baseload supply of quality-controlled pellets.

The capability of British pellet producers is growing. Until recently, it was not easy to source good-quality, consistent, reliable, well-priced wood pellets in the UK. But the range of options is increasing, and as it does, Forever Fuels will draw increasing volumes of its pellets from British producers. We are already buying from one British producer, and expect to buy from others in the near future, as we satisfy ourselves of their quality and reliability.

Outside of the UK, large-scale production plants are located in Europe and North and South America (and in other parts of the world, but not usually for shipping in bulk to the UK).

Some parts of continental Europe have a very much larger wood-pellet infrastructure than us, particularly Austria and Sweden, which have led the way with this technology. There is a large market in west-central Europe for pellets produced in the Austrian neighbourhood, and transport of pellets from there to the UK is neither efficient nor cheap.

So most of the European pellets available for the UK market come from northern Europe - particularly Scandinavia (primarily Sweden and Finland), the Baltic countries (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) and Russia. The Swedes and Finns are particularly advanced in trading pellets internationally, both their own and those produced by their north-European neighbours.

Forever Fuels is proud to be working with Skellefteå Kraft, one of the largest and longest-established producers in Sweden to bring their high-quality pellets to the UK market.

The Canadians and Americans have a huge resource, and are beginning to invest to turn some of their wood into pellet fuel. We will probably see more of their pellets entering the European market in the coming years.

Argentina, Chile and several other South American countries are also starting to export their pellets. No pellets are produced or exported from Amazonian rainforest or other essential habitats (even if one wanted to, the types of wood are not ideal for pelletization).

In the short-term, British producers are likely to supply an increasing proportion of wood pellets in the UK. However, the sustainable resource of biomass suitable for energy-use is limited in the UK. As the market grows, we are likely to see pellets being increasingly imported from countries with a greater sustainable resource than practical demand for heating purposes, such as Sweden, Finland, the Baltics, Russia and Canada. So long as governments do not foolishly subsidise inefficient power-only projects (which waste most of the energy up the chimney), wood pellets will be able to satisfy that material proportion of our energy demands for which they are suitable, through heat-only or combined-heat-and-power (CHP) projects, without significant impacts on deforestation or other sustainability issues.

Although it is a long way to travel, and wood is not a particularly dense fuel, the energy, environmental and economic costs of shipping are much lower per mile than for transport by land, the product is not perishable, and pellets are a relatively dense form of wood (compared to wood chip), so it is neither impractical nor environmentally absurd to bring the fuel from this distance. After all, our fossil fuels have usually travelled a long way by the time they get to us. Only a small fraction of the energy content of the pellets is consumed in their transport by boat from distant sources.

Our suppliers are selected according to their ability to meet our specifications and quality requirements, and within those constraints, they are chosen on the basis of price, reliability, and relationship, so that we can provide our customers with the most secure and sustainable, highest-quality and best-value pellets possible.