Vietnam is expected to double its wood pellet export volume by 2027 as well as widen the certified plantation.
The country is projected to export about 10mn t/yr of wood pellets in 2027, Vietnam Wood Pellet Association and Phu Tai Bioenergy Development Corporation chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong said at the CMT Biomass conference in Tokyo last week. This would be slightly more than double the 4.8mn t the country exported in 2022.
Southern Vietnam is expected to export 4.07mn t/yr by 2027, a 65pc increase from 2022's 2.46mn t, central Vietnam to reach exports of 2.66mn t/yr — or 60pc higher — and north Vietnam to reach 3.3mn t/yr exports — multiple times above 662,000t in 2022 — over the same periods of time, Nguyen said. Wood pellet production capacity in the northern part of Vietnam is to grow rapidly because the plantations in the area focus on investing in wood pellets, he added. Plantations in northern Vietnam primarily export wood chips, but export demand for wood chips has been volatile, therefore companies are investing in wood pellets, Nguyen said.
Vietnam exported 2.41mn t of wood pellets to Japan, 2.23mn t to South Korea and 110,000t to Europe in 2022, Nguyen added. Vietnam had not exported any volumes to Europe in 2020-21.
Certification efforts and challenges
The Vietnamese government as well as the private sector, development agencies, small holders and forest companies are all focusing efforts to expand the certification area in the country.
Nguyen calculated that of 4.57mn ha of plantation forest in the country, the non-certified plantation area would be significantly reduced to 1.67mn ha in 2027 from 3.28mn ha in 2022.
But challenges remained when promoting certification to smallholders. One key challenge was that wood chip exports to China, a key market for Vietnamese wood chip suppliers, could be certified and non-certified. Therefore, smallholders did not have sufficient incentive to be certified for sustainability, Nguyen said.
