Will there be a huge pellet shortage this year?

[JustWood]

You all keep discussing shortage & price of pellets & it will be a sure thing no matter what that pellet prices won't drop . You don't think dealers don't know about our site ? Their lickin' their chops reading about some of the near panic on this particular thread. They just love guys like Blah (Lee's Wood) . He's the biggest cynical poster on our site . Just read all his past posts & responses. Get a grip !! We really can't forecast jack on this year's prices . That's what gonna create "shortage" Muss

hehehehe Since when was I crowned the all knowing "Pellet Guru" ????? I didn't know my posts here were the barometer for all pellet retailers worldwide and I had such an influence on prices. Supply and demand and the price of oil is what causes panic and in turn pellet manufacturers and retailers raise their prices. Not a post some one makes here.

I have said it before and I'll say it again. If loggers are not removing HIGH GRADE trees for lumber from the woods then pulp which goes to pellet mills to be chipped is not being removed. There are times when a large landholder will do a "Timberstand improvement" which yields pulp alone but it is not on a large scale such as a normal harvest. Raw product supply is dropping daily and the infrastructure (mills & loggers) to produce it is vanishing also. These are facts. The milling and logging trade mags are filled with auctions and used equipment monthly. A pellet mill near me in Ohio recently went out of business and they had an auction for all the equipment. Seems to me if the pellet industry was thriving they could have made a go of it or another manufacturer could have taken it over. There was even a large sawmill next door that supplied them with material. Seems odd they had all the pieces of the puzzle but couldn't make it work. Could it have been because of NO RAW MATERIAL!

I haven't seen my crown yet. When you get around to it, make sure it's 24K gold with lots of emeralds ,diamonds, and rubys! %-P

 

[humpin iron]

There will be pellets, buy in the OFF months

 

[Delta-T]

truth be told, I alone control the price of pelllets........ok, ok, I made that up, but, we can all agree that a shortage of material, leads to shortage or at the least increase in price of end product. this seems to be true for most things. the pellet industry knows this, and knows that those who control the sawdust can pretty much dictate the price. few people know that the mushroom growing industry (no, not that kind) is a HUGE consumer of sawdust. in the long run this type of thing will speed the transition to a true "biomass" pellet. The U.S. produces billions (with a B) of tons of agricultural sillage that can be used to make pellets. like grasses, the thing slowing down the lateral growth of pellets is stoves that cannot handle the ash. unfortunatley I think its gonna be one of those "we'll make the stoves when the fuels available, but we can't make the fuel until theres a market, and there wont be a market without the stoves". i've heard the GP (Georgia Pacific)and other large wood processors are retooling plywood manufacturing to produce pellets when there is a low demand for plywood. Some of the large tree farms I'm sure will clear out "undesireable" trees in order to prepare for the future demand for particular species and that will keep GP going through this whole "economic downturn". With a little luck, those same pellets will become export leaving mills in the north to sell to us. its gonna be a whacky year. I like pellet heat, plain and simple. I may not be saving much if any $$, but I like it anyways.