Company Profile Pellet logistics Making ocean transport easier at the Port of Vancouver. By Andrew Macklin the logistics of moving wood pellets from remote locations across Canada to export markets in Europe and Asia has never been easy. Many loca-tions lack the necessary rail structure, road network, or water access to be able to efficiently move pellets overseas. But with the pellet market driving forward in Canada, transpor-tation companies have begun working together to build better sys-tems for handling material and for transporting it from the plant to the consumer. “We’ve gotten better as an industry in terms of logistics,” explains Kerry Lige, president of Fibreco. “I think historically each of us in the chain tended to look inward in terms of our little operation.” Co-operation in the logistics chain has allowed companies like Fibreco to see steady growth in annual exports. In 2012, Fibreco exported 1.6 million tonnes of pellets and 500,000 tonnes of wood chips. Situated in the Port of Vancouver, Fibreco provides overseas shipping for Pinnacle Renewable Energy, Premium Pellets, and Pa-cific Bioenergy’s wood pellet plants across British Columbia, as well as wood chips from sawmilling operations across the province. gLoBaL peLLet markets Shipments of pellets from B.C. producers remain focused on Euro-pean markets despite the recent announcement of the first shipment from Fibreco to South Korea. “The pellet business is fundamentally European driven,” says Lige. “Specifically the electricity business in the U.K.” The same cannot be said for Fibreco’s chip exports. Much of the chip volume is sent to the Asian market, with Japan the primary customer. “In the chip business, our customers are primarily in Japan,” says Lige. “For most of those customers, the chips are for the paper busi-ness. We export the wood chips for the purpose of manufacturing TOP: The conveyor system leading to the dock allows Fibreco to load the cargo holds at a rate of approximately 1,000 tonnes per hour. ABOVE: Pellets are stored inside the pellet shed at Fibreco before being loaded for shipment. Canadian BIOMASS 23
Canadian Biomass November/December 2013: Page 23
