Pellet mills have had to work closely with logging contractors to get the cleanest possible material from their operations. the bonus is that much of the fibre that Tolko is bringing in from the woods would otherwise be left in the forest and burned. This biomass processing facility gives waste wood a chance to be pro-cessed into a usable product. TANGLED WEB OF TRADE As a wood pellet producer in British Colombia, Pacific BioEnergy is constantly renegotiating short-term contracts for its raw material. The plant’s location in Prince George provides a variety of players with whom to negotiate, but as long as the company is dependent on others to provide its feedstocks, it lacks a strong position in negotiations. “We tend to negotiate both sawmill residuals and forest re-siduals with sawmills that have allocations of Crown tenures which give them both term and volume certainty on a per-centage of their supply. We have neither of those things, so we find that the market is imbalanced when we go to negotiate contracts,” Bennett says. Pacific BioEnergy had a forest licence, but the company wasn’t looking to simply harvest its own fibre to be processed in Prince George. Rather, the harvest goes to Tolko’s sawmill in Quesnel where the sawlogs are processed and the bio-mass-quality logs are chipped and traded on the pulp market. The only fibre that will make its way to Prince George is the sawdust out of Tolko’s sawmill and any chip fines from the chip processing. “It’s an integrated web of contracts and trades that go on and it’s good for our business,” Bennett says. “It helps us minimize transportation, reduce costs and keep the fibre flowing to the best end-use facility.” In the end, the facility will give the forest town a shot in the arm. Trade agreements support logging in the region, the sawlogs go to Tolko’s sawmill, chips go to local pulp mills and the sawmill and chip fines go to Pacific BioEnergy or are traded Rising energy costs, concerned about your heating bills in 2015? Be proactive with a Biomass boiler. Computer controlled and fully-automated, biomass systems from Viessmann feature industry-leading wood heating technology for safe, reliable and trouble-free operation. n More than 60 Commercial Biomass boiler installations across Canada n Outstanding Efficiency of up to 85% n Eco-friendly and CO2-neutral n Sustainable and Economical , wood is renewable and free of wide price fluctuations n Stringent safety -built to ASME, Section IV and tested to CSA/UL Safety Standards n Two Types Available -Pyrot (5 models) 512 to 1843 MBH, and Pyrotec (5 models) 1330 to 4268 MBH n Biomass industry creates jobs in Canada. www.viessmann.ca 1-800-387-7373 [email protected] Pellets Sawdust Woodchips Hog fuel 16 Biomass Half Page Ad -01 02-2015.indd 1 Canadian BIOMASS MARCH/APRIL 2015 2/26/2015 3:56:36 PM
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