Japan's renewable energy developer Erex will postpone the start-up of its wood pellet factory in Vietnam from December 2024 to around February 2025.
The Tuyen Quang factory — which is the company's first wood pellet production project in Vietnam — has been running test operations, but cannot start commercial operations this month as initially scheduled, Erex said on 13 December. The company did not disclose the reasons for the delay.
The factory in Tuyen Quang province will produce around 150,000 t/yr of wood pellets, mainly from locally-secured unused forest materials, and export them to other countries including Japan for biomass-fired power plants. The investment amount for this project is $20.4mn.
Erex aims to build up to 20 wood pellet factories in Vietnam, and several ones in Cambodia. The company is also planning biomass-fired generation capacity in southeast Asia, with up to 18 power plants in Vietnam and five in Cambodia. The first one is scheduled to come on line this month in Vietnam.
Erex's profits from projects in Vietnam and Cambodia are expected to grow rapidly and will account for more than 70pc of its whole profits around 2030, according to the company.
