21 May 2025

Why Lukashenko has high hopes on wood biofuel production

Pellets are fuel granules. They are produced, in fact, from waste wood. Environmentally friendly biofuel can replace coal, oil, gas and firewood. In Europe and some Asian countries, wood pellets have long been used on an industrial scale. In a new episode of BelTA’s YouTube project “After the Fact: Lukashenko’s Decisions” we will explore how pellets are produced. How much does one tonne of pellets cost? How are Belarusians encouraged to switch to wood biofuel? A heads up: l cite a lot of useful figures!

How many pellet production facilities operate in Belarus
There are 64 fuel pellet production facilities in Belarus. They are of different forms of ownership. Almost one third of them are affiliated with the Forestry Ministry.

“All these facilities have different capacities. Starting from small production facilities that produce 300 tonnes per month and finishing with large ones that have a production capacity of more than 100,000 tonnes per year. As far as the Forestry Ministry is concerned, our production facilities basically have a production capacity of about 20,000 tonnes per month,” said Vladimir Krech, Deputy Forestry Minister of the Republic of Belarus.

The total capacity of Belarusian production facilities is estimated at more than 900,000 tonnes per year. Initially, these were export-oriented projects. The global wood pellets market size is huge.

“Today, the global consumption of pellets is estimated at more than 31 million tonnes. The main consumers are the UK (over 7 million tonnes), the EU (more than 12.5 million tonnes), Japan (4.5 million tonnes), South Korea (6 million tonnes). Therefore, the products manufactured at these facilities were meant primarily for export,” Vladimir Krech said.

What does Lukashenko demand from wood biofuel producers?

Several years ago, selling pellets to Europe was quite a lucrative business. Back then the manufacturers were given the following task: to sell at a profit and not to compete with each other. This was one of the instructions that Aleksandr Lukashenko gave during his working trip to Vitebsk Oblast in June 2020.

“Well done, your pellet business has shot up. You have built these facilities in no time. You have started producing fuel,” the president said.

That said, he asked the government to make sure domestic producers would not compete with each other in Europe where the demand for such products is huge. “If we start competing with each other, prices will drop and profits will plummet into the negative range. The sale of products should be coordinated by one center,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

Source