US manufacturers produced approximately 850,000 tons of densified biomass fuels in July, according to the October edition of the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Monthly Densified Biomass Fuels Report. During the same month, sales of densified biomass fuel totaled 920,000 tons.
The EIA based its report on data collected from 77 manufacturers of densified biomass fuel. Notably, the report excludes facilities with annual production capacities below 10,000 tons, which report data on an annual basis.
The surveyed manufacturers had a combined production capacity of 13.34 million tons per year and employed the equivalent of 2,598 full-time workers. In July, these respondents purchased 1.56 million tons of raw biomass feedstock, resulting in the production of 850,000 tons of densified biomass fuel, which included 103,562 tons of heating pellets and 748,729 tons of utility pellets.
Domestic sales for densified biomass fuel in July reached 113,007 tons, with an average price of $204.62 per ton. In contrast, exports for the month totaled 809,850 tons, averaging $184.03 per ton.
Inventories for premium and standard pellets rose to 361,669 tons in July, up from 327,721 tons in June. However, inventories of utility pellets declined to 539,622 tons, down from 639,592 tons in the previous month.
According to EIA data, the total U.S. densified biomass fuel capacity reached 13.43 million tons in July, with all of this capacity either currently operating or temporarily inactive. The breakdown included 1.97 million tons in the East, 10.67 million tons in the South, and 797,200 tons in the West.
