Japanese firm to test Chinese wood pellet cargo

Market: Biomass
18/10/24

A Japanese trading house plans to test delivery of an industrial wood pellet cargo from China to Japan in November.

A cargo with 11,000t of wood pellets will be shipped from Shanghai in eastern China to a Japanese end user. The pellets are PEFC-certified and meet Japan's sustainability certification requirements for state-supported schemes for power generators such as the feed-in-tariff (FiT) or feed-in-premium (FiP).

The delivered cargo will cost around $10/t more compared with prices for Vietnamese pellets, and the firm plans to bring in more Chinese cargoes in 2025 should the first cargo be delivered successfully.

Suppliers in China estimate the country has an export capacity of over half a million tonnes of wood pellets, although such potential has yet to materialise. China exported 9,000t of wood pellets in 2023, with shipments to Japan below 1,000t, customs data show.

By Erisa Senerdem

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