The wood pellet sector calls for policies that reduce production costs

Last Friday, October 7, the Apropellets association held its usual assembly in the Navarrese town of Arbizu, in which its Navarrese associates Naparpellets (Etxarri-Aranatz) and Beropel (Lesaka) acted as hosts. Among the most current issues affecting the sector, Apropellets applauds the government's decision to lower the VAT to 5% on wood pellets . A historic demand from the sector that had been requesting to be on par with other countries around us where a reduced VAT was already applied. Apropellets and the entire sector maintain the demand for a reduced VAT of 10% in the long term, which provides greater security and encourages stable growth for the sector .

As part of the forestry and timber sector, Apropellets joins and supports the demand for forestry policies that facilitate and expedite the mobilization of the enormous potential of raw materials that is lost or burned in our forests . Forest management and its use is the best guarantee for the survival and improvement of the quality and health of our forests. Wood is a renewable and local raw material, with enormous economic and local ecosystem benefits.

Within Apropellets, 76% of the raw material demanded comes from byproducts of the wood processing industry . The drop in production in the forestry and logging industry generates tension in the availability and an increase in the cost of raw materials, causing increases of over 100% in the cost of raw materials, with the significant weight (of approximately 50%) which is assumed to be in the final production costs of wood pellets.

There is also concern about the cost of electrical energy , which continues to be between 8 and 10 times more expensive for the wood pellet manufacturer than at the beginning of 2021. The electrical cost has gone from representing less than 8% of production costs. more than 20%. Apropellets, like the rest of the industrial sectors, demands from the government energy policies that make it easier for the electricity price to correctly transfer the real costs of most of the electricity generation .

The production costs and lack of raw materials are causing that, in a situation of high demand, some factories cannot produce at their highest capacity. Up to 12 Apropellets member plants produced below 70% during the pre-season, and 7 do not expect to be able to work above 80% during the campaign.

The effort of the entire sector hopes to be able to cover all national demand, but this time with a little more uncertainty about the evolution of the campaign than in other years. Within this effort, the exercise of general responsibility that producers are doing stands out, leaving the product in the national market, in order to cover the demand of Spanish consumers, thereby rejecting much more attractive opportunities from an economic point of view that are coming. from abroad. From Apropellets, we want to send a message of calm, because currently there is enough product , and advises against the stockpiling of product that is sometimes detected in an exaggerated way.

In its consumer protection work, Apropellets has been warning of a revitalization of scams in the sale of wood pellets, taking advantage of the rise in prices . The appearance of fake online stores and identity theft of some producers has led us to establish a protocol within Apropellets to report, on the one hand, the suspicious websites that are being identified, and demand greater agility from the institutions to delete this type of website.

In addition, it was decided to establish a line of work together with other national associations from other European countries and the entities that manage the EN Plus and DIN Plus certificates, to alert and detect possible scams and entry of counterfeit products, which mainly affect distributors from other countries. countries.