2021 South Korean Investment in Commercial Auto-biomass Wood Pellet Factory Production Line Market Analysis

1. 2021 South Korean Wood Pellet Demand Analysis

There have been difficulties arranging shipments from Vietnam, a major wood pellet supplier in Asia-Pacific, to South Korea since November 2020. China's economic recovery, the slow return of empty containers from the US and Europe to Asia-Pacific amid the Covid-19 pandemic and a diversion of many containers for shipping medical supplies have all contributed to the container shortage issue. Shipment delays have been reported and the container shortage issue will not be resolved quickly, Soomin Lee, a forestry research scientist at NIFoS, told Argus.

South Korean Wood Pellet Demand Analysis

Higher freight rates as a result of tight container availability, which translates to higher prices for state-owned utilities and independent power plants, may lower demand for imported wood pellets, Lee said. Argus assessed the fob Vietnam wood pellet spot price at $97.50/t and the cfr Gwangyang spot price at $116.06/t on 27 January, leaving the spread at $18.56/t, an almost fivefold increase from a spread of just $3.94/t on 4 November 2020.

South Korea will also have more capacity to produce unused woody biomass, which is domestic woody forest biomass that will otherwise not be used in any industrial function in the country. Lee estimates that the country will add 300,000 t/yr of capacity to produce unused woody biomass this year, taking its total capacity to 700,000 t/yr.

Prices for unused woody biomass sought through 2019-20 tenders from state-owned utilities were stable at around 350,000 South Korean won/t ($313.44/t) on a delivered duty paid (ddp) basis, compared with the winning price for imported wood pellets at around the mid-$130s/t on a ddp basis in Korea Southern Power's (Kospo) tender on 25 January.

It is possible that South Korea will import more than 3mn t of wood pellets in 2021. This is because South Korea's renewable portfolio standard obligation, which power plants with capacity of over 500MW must meet, rose to 9pc this year from 7pc in 2020, and there may also be additional demand from new biomass-fired power plants that started operations last year, Lee said. South Korea's state-controlled utility Korea South East Power (Koen) started commissioning its 200MW Yeongdong No.2 unit in August, which has been converted to a 100pc dedicated biomass power plant.

2. Processing Technology of Korean Wood Pellet Production Line

The process of making biomass pellet fuel needs to be customized according to the specific situation of each customer, and the required equipment also needs to be configured according to the specific situation. There are thousands of people, not exactly the same, which is also the characteristic of this industry. The reason for this is because the raw materials of each customer are different, and the processing technology is naturally different. Of course, there are no rules to follow, I will briefly talk about it below. The production of wood pellets requires that the moisture content of the raw materials is controlled at about 15%, and the size is controlled below 12mm. If this standard is not met, it needs to be processed with equipment to reach this standard.

(1) Chipping: Use a high efficiency drum wood chipper to cut the straw, branch materials, and large pieces that cannot be directly crushed into small pieces.

(2) Crushing: The agricultural and forestry waste is crushed by a crusher to make the particle size less than 5mm. This process generates dust and equipment operating noise. The pulverizer is only equipped with a feed port and a discharge port. The feed port is closed after feeding to reduce dust escape. The discharge port is connected to a Double-Cyclone dust collector. The Double-Cyclone dust collector uses the principle of centrifugal force to separate scrap and crush The material is deposited in the dust collector and discharged through the material port. The gas is discharged from the Shakelong dust collector and then processed by the bag dust collector. All the collected dust is recycled to the production line.

(3) Drying: Some raw materials that account for 30% of the total have a moisture content of 55% (the data provided by the owner is between 50% and 60%, and this environmental assessment takes 55%), which does not meet the requirements of granulation Claim. These raw materials with excessive moisture content need to be dried to make the moisture content meet the granulation requirements (the moisture content is less than 13%), and the moisture content of the raw materials after drying is about 10%. The roller dryer machine of this project is equipped with a biomass burner, and the fuel is biomass pellets produced by the project. This process produces dust, combustion exhaust gas, noise, and ash.

(4) Conveying and feeding: the raw materials are sucked into the feed port of the granulator through the feeding screw, this process generates dust and noise.

(5) Granulation: the raw materials are fed into the wood pellet machine through the feeding auger, and the finished product is formed by extrusion molding. The extrusion process is a physical process without any adhesive and no chemical reaction occurs, except for the feeding auger connection The equipment is sealed at and outside the discharge port. This process mainly produces noise and high-temperature dust-containing waste gas;

Wood Pellet Mill

(6) Lifting and conveying cooling: The pelletized biomass particles are naturally cooled by conveying, so that their temperature can reach the conditions of packaging and storage, and finally conveyed to the finished product warehouse. This process generates dust and noise.

(7) Packing: The compressed hot particles pass through the screening at the end of the conveyor belt, and the qualified biomass particles fall into the finished product warehouse. The bottom of the finished product warehouse is a funnel-shaped discharge port. The finished product can be directly dropped into the packaging bag. After the machine is packaged, it can be stacked for sale. After molding, the biomass particles have been compacted and dense, and there is basically no dust during the bagging process. The unqualified products are discharged and collected and then returned to the granulation process.

3. USA Large Industrial 10 Tons/Hour Wood Pellet Plant Production Line Project

• Name: Wood Sawdust Pellet Production Line
• Country: America
• Capacity: 10T/H
• Date: 2019
• Installation cycle: 60 Days
• Pellet Size: 6-12mm wood pellet

The raw material for the 10 tons of wood pellet processing project customized for the customer is wood chips, and the pellet size requirement is 8mm. This sawdust production line is large in scale, innovative in design, highly automated,and adopt the turnkey service promoted by Richi in recent years. From design, construction to installation and trial operation, Richi contracted all production line construction work.

US 10t/h Biomass Wood Pellet Plant Production Line delivery photos

Customer's wood pellets process flow: sawdust raw materials are crushed, broken, dried, granulated, cooled, bagged.Afterwards, it is made into various types and grades of wood pellet fuel for use in power plants and heating. Biomass pellet fuel technology is easier to achieve large-scale production and use. The convenience of using bio-energy pellets is comparable to energy sources such as gas and fuel oil.

The whole line uses more than a dozen equipment manufactured by Richi, including most popular drum wood chipper*30KW, best price sfsp water drop wood hammer mill machine*55kw, professional design biomass wood pellet machine for north america market*137KW, pellet cooling machine*SKLH11*11, pellet packing machine and other auxiliary equipment.