The volume of sunflower husk pellet production in 2012 may get record-breaking
It’s forecasted that in 2012 sunflower husk pellet production will become record-breaking. Among the favorable factors there could be mentioned a rich last year harvest of sunflower crop, a permanent growth of demand for this product in Ukraine and abroad, and also increase of production capacity and the volume of supply from domestic producers. Thanks for a sufficient amount of feedstock it’s expected that this year there won’t be any break in the husk pellet production process as it happened during previous years. The harvest of 2011 must be enough for maintenance of continuous production process until the seeds cultivated in 2012 are used.
It’s not surprisingly that the world demand for sunflower husk biofuel increases yearly. These pellets could be an excellent alternative for such expensive and harmful for ecology kinds of fuel as coal and gas, moreover they are cheaper, than wood pellets. In contrast to other types of fuel, sunflower husk pellets very rarely content heavy dirt (like sand), which may damage fuel equipment. They also don’t contain dust and spores, which may cause allergy. It’s a sustainable kind of fuel with a very low ash content and with a high packed density, which makes storage and delivery processes cost effective and easy.
Ukraine is the country with a developed agricultural sector and a rich raw materials base for producing sunflower husk pellets. According to the data of the marketing experts from Ukrainian biofuel portal, the pace of development of such market is stable enough, the number of producers and suppliers increases early, the production volumes grow as well. Along with increase of world demand the volume of husk pellet supply from the Ukrainian producers increases also. Thus agricultural pellets ensure the main production volume gain on the Ukrainian biofuel market.
The marketing specialists of Ukrainian biofuel portal revealed that in 2012 there were registered 24 new producers and 54 new suppliers of sunflower husk pellets in Ukraine. The majority of the producers is concentrated in Zaporozhskiy, Khersonskiy and Donetskiy regions.
While exporting sunflower husk pellets to the European market Ukraine stays the supplier of fuel made of rather rare for other countries raw materials. Such pellets are mainly utilized in the industrial sphere (at the European heat power stations) like an alternative energy resource. These days Poland is the biggest purchaser of the Ukrainian sunflower husk pellets. The level of competition in other countries grows, moreover there exists the assumption that Moldova will be interested in the Ukrainian pellets soon. Due to the lack of development of the modern trade infrastructure the selling volume of husk pellets on the domestic market is insignificant compared to the volume of the production exported abroad. However, the permanent growth of prices for power received from the traditional energy resources makes the Ukrainian market of solid fuel develop successfully. The share of husk pellets on the domestic market annually grows.
Today the producers and suppliers of sunflower husk pellets try to establish all necessary contacts and develop the distribution channels for selling their production. On the basis of the received propositions the specialists of Ukrainian biofuel portal created the database of sunflower husk pellet producers and suppliers. This information resource covers the second half of 2011 and the first half of 2012. This database includes the biggest part of producers and suppliers of husk pellets in Ukraine. Besides this, there are detailed descriptions of propositions, contacts of companies, their production capacity, prices for production, its technical features and delivery conditions.
The database presented by Ukrainian biofuel portal is a useful source of information, which may help to establish contacts between sunflower husk pellet sellers and buyers. Moreover it gives a general idea of the situation in this sector of the Ukrainian energy market, its main players and their volumes of output. When using the database all producers and sellers will be able to estimate their rivals’ possibilities, as well as market average prices. As for buyers, they will be able to choose the most suitable variants of collaboration, calculate their purchase prices and create the next year budget.
