Pellets and again pellets! Why Lukashenko demands to establish the production of wood biofuel
May 21, 2025
Pellets are fuel granules. They are produced, in essence, from wood waste. Environmentally friendly biofuel can replace coal, oil, gas, and firewood. In Europe and some Asian countries, wood pellets have long been used on an industrial scale. In this episode of the Belta YouTube project "As a Matter of Fact: The First's Decisions," we will tell you how pellets are produced, how much a ton of pellets costs, and how Belarusians are encouraged to switch to wood biofuel. Attention: there will be many useful figures!
"These productions have different capacities. Starting from small productions with a capacity of about 300 tons per month and ending with quite serious ones that have a production capacity of over 100 thousand tons per year. As for the Ministry of Forestry, our productions mainly have capacities of about 20 thousand tons per month," said Vladimir Krech, Deputy Minister of Forestry.
The total capacity of Belarusian productions is over 900 thousand tons per year. Initially, these were export-oriented projects. The global pellet consumption market is huge.
"Today, global pellet consumption is over 31 million tons. The main consumers are Great Britain (over 7 million tons), EU countries (over 12.5 million tons), Japan (4.5 million), the Republic of Korea (6 million). Therefore, the construction of these productions was primarily aimed at export," explained Vladimir Krech.
A few years ago, pellet production products were successfully exported to Europe. Then, the producers faced the following task: to sell profitably, not to compete among themselves. This was one of Alexander Lukashenko's instructions during his working trip to the Vitebsk region in June 2020.
"Well done, you've really ramped up pellet production. You built these plants instantly and started producing fuel," the President praised.
At the same time, he instructed the government to work on ensuring that pellet producers do not compete with each other in the European market, where there is high demand for such products. "If we start competing with each other there, we'll drive down prices and end up with negative profitability. Take the product sales into one hand," said Alexander Lukashenko.
The economy has suffered due to political conflicts. Sanctions pressure has made it impossible to export pellets to the European Union. In March of this year, while forming a new government, Alexander Lukashenko demanded that other sales markets be found.
"We agreed: pellets and more pellets. This is fuel. We've become extremely brazen: cheap natural gas means we don't need firewood and other things. I don't know what the situation is with these pellets for you now, but this is your most crucial problem. We built seven or eight plants last year to process this waste, this junk that's abundant in the forest, and make a wonderful product. Look for markets other than Europe. And Europe isn't going anywhere," said the head of state.
What fuel pellets are made from
In 2020, the first pellet production facility was opened at the Borisov Experimental Forestry based on the Nemantsa site. The total annual output is 30 thousand tons of wood pellets.
"In 2022, we built a second production facility. The first site produces white pellets for small domestic boilers. At the second site, we produce pellets for industrial needs," noted Viktor Amelyanovich, Director of the Borisov Experimental Forestry.
Source