Japan boosts wood pellet imports in March

Japan's wood pellet imports in March rose from a year earlier, with Indonesian supplies hitting a record high of almost 60,000t.

Japan imported 531,500t of wood pallets in March, up by 47pc from a year earlier, according to preliminary data released by the country's finance ministry on 26 April. This was also higher by 9pc from February.

Imports from Indonesia jumped to 59,353t in March, more than a fivefold increase from 10,796t a year earlier. This significantly exceeded the previous record high of 35,516t in January. But Vietnam remained Japan's top supplier at 247,054t, up by 63pc on the year.

Japan received 102,478t of wood pellets from the US in March, withno cargoes delivered in March 2023.Imports from Malaysia also almost tripled to 22,261t from the previous year's 7,591t.

Higher March imports sent Japan's total imports in the April 2023-March 2024 fiscal year to around 6.1mn t, up by 29pc from a year earlier.

PKS imports

But Japan cut imports of palm kernel shell (PKS) in March, down by 30pc from a year earlier. Imports from Indonesia fell by 23pc to 184,384t, while Malaysian supplies declined by 51pc to 40,462t.

The start-up of a new biomass-fired power plant in March helped increase Japan's total imports. Japanese renewable power developer Renova in March started commercial operations at its 75MW Ishinomaki Hibarino biomass-fired power plant in northeast Japan's Miyagi prefecture, which burns an undisclosed volume of wood pellets and PKS.

But domestic utility Jera's 1,070MW Taketoyo No 5 coal and biomass co-fired power unit in Aichi prefecture has been off line since a fire in January. Fellow utility Tokyo Gas' 51.5MW Fushiki Manyofuto biomass-fired plant in Toyama prefecture also continued to face technical issues after a 7.6 magnitude earthquake hit the Hokuriku area in January.

By Takeshi Maeda