According to data recently released by the U.S. Department of Energy Information, U.S. manufacturers produced about 570,000 tons of biomass-shaped fuel in February and sold 640,000 tons in the month.
This data is part of the May edition of the EIA Monthly Biomass Fuel Report, which includes data from February. The EIA collected data from 87 biomass molded fuel producers to complete the report. The report does not include annual capacity below 1 Million tons of facility data, these small facilities report data annually rather than monthly.
According to 87 manufacturers who submitted data in February, their total annual production capacity was 11.79 million tons, a total of 1964 full-time employees.
In February, the companies surveyed purchased 1.09 million tons of biomass feedstock, produced 570,000 tons of densified biomass fuel, and sold 640,000 tons of biomass fuel. The production included 121,949 tons of heating particles and 450,185 tons of power generation particles.
Domestic sales of densified biomass fuel reached 129,103 tons, with an average price of US$148.82 per ton. Export sales reached 509,868 tons, and the average price was US$166.77 per ton.
In February, high-quality/standard wood grain inventories reached 216,870 tons, which was higher than the 212,304 tons in January. Inventories of wood chips used for power generation fell to 255,172 tons in February, down from 256,449 tons in January.
According to data collected by the environmental impact assessment, the total biomass particle fuel production in the United States reached 11.91 million tons per year in February, of which 2.43 million tons were in the east, 8.6 million tons in the south, and 797,000 tons in the west, and another 38,700 tons. Capacity is being planned or under construction.
Current planned or under construction plants include the 37,000-ton factory in Maine, which is being developed by F.E. Wood & Sons-Natural Energy, and the 1,700-ton factory in New Mexico that was developed by Mt. Taylor-WoodYouRecycle.
