We live in turbulent times, full of challenges and opportunities. A devaluating ruble means good business for exporting wood pellet producers who invested in their equipment at better valuta rates. This counts for the Siberian producers focused at China/ Japan/ Korea, or for those focused at the EU from western Russia. Read more

The coordinator of the plan realization is the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation. A working expert group is organized for discussing this topic in the Ministry. Experts from different fields are presented there. Olga Rakitova, the CEO of the National Bioenergy Union is one of them. INFOBIO has asked several questions from Mrs Rakitova. Read more

Russian pellet market tends to high concentration and monopolization. Today, number of buyers exceed number of exporters more than three times, but it wasn't so two years ago. The main volume of pellets is exported to Denmark and Sweden (aprox.79%). Almost all the pellets were exported from the north-western region of Russia, with the key ports - St. Petersburg, Vyborg and Ust-Luga. Read more

Shipments have increased practically every quarter for four years, up from 130,000 tons in the 1Q/08 to almost 600,000 ton in the 4Q/12, according to the North American Wood Fiber Review (NAWFR). Export data collected by NAWFR from exporters and customs information in both North America and Europe show that wood pellet shipments reached just over two million tons in 2011, up almost 300% from 2008. Read more

 Lufthansa became the first airline to use biofuels on regular commercial flights on 15^th of July in a six month trial that it estimates will reduce CO2 emissions by up to 1,500 tonnes during the period. Lufthansa is using a mix of regular fuel and biofuel made by Neste Oil from jatropha and camelina crops and animal fats, in one engine of an Airbus plane on daily flights between Frankfurt and Hamburg. The magazine “The Bioenergy Interntional.Russia” and the information agency “INFOBIO” asked about new biofuel from its producer Neste Oil, Finland. Mr. Matti Lehmus, Executive Vice President, Oil Products and Renewables, Neste Oil gave the following answers.  Read more