Click here to find your nearest OxLogs supplier. If you are living in an area without the OxLogs supplier, please do contact us so we could know and try to take the further steps in order to ensure you have one. Buying local, good quality firewood helps to support local businesses and minimize ‘fuel miles’. …
the manufacturers for this industry have been operating at a loss for years,
uk production and sales are heavily regulated to protect the consumer,
the consumers benefit from the subsidies paid to the industry,
it requires massive amounts of land to produce the raw material,
the end customer is constantly encouraged to shop around for the cheapest deal and ignore the ethics or the quality of the product,
uk production has been unable to compete with imports on price as a result of the regulations on production.
I’m not talking about farming, not lamb, beef, dairy or pork.
I’m talking about wood pellets but if you can see similarities you’re not the only one.
Here’s what happened next.
Several large biomass electricity generators went online for the first time in Europe this year.
In Norther Europe and Russia the expected cold weather which enables harvesting didn’t arrive.
Faced with massive flooding Latvia declared a state of disaster which enabled the forestry companies to escape penalty clauses in their contracts by claiming force majeure .
Smaller production plants were forced to close as the price of the raw materials suddenly rose beyond what they could pay.
And then there were shortages. All of a sudden uk householders with pellet stoves couldn’t get the bagged pellets they needed to heat their houses. very few companies had supply and those that did had massive lead times and even more massive price rises.
The social media posts about the situation were interesting. To begin with there were bitter complaints; about the quality of what was available, about the ever increasing price, about the delivery charges some companies charged for outlying areas. People threatened to take their business elsewhere or talked about their special circumstances and how outrageous it was that they should be left to freeze. Sadly they were directing their comments at retailers who had no control over the situation.
Then the complaints virtually stopped. There isn’t, as most people realised, a lot of point in addressing them to retailers who would love to change the situation but can’t. There wouldn’t be a lot of point in addressing them to forestry companies who are there to produce as much timber as possible at the best possible profit level. And addressing them to a manufacturer who has been making a loss for the last five years and who finally sees a chance to make a profit, however briefly, and providing he or she can get raw materials, is possibly nearly as much of a waste of time.
You might take the view that anyone who installs a system dependant on an industry whose figures don’t stack up is asking for trouble. Apply that logic to the farming sector and the outlook is very grim. We all have to eat.
The uk has always taken the view that as a rich country it can afford to buy whatever raw materials it needs, likewise that there will always be huge imports of processed food. We produce only a tiny percentage of what we eat, burn or utilise in other ways. The wood pellet crisis has just proved that when there is a shortage of something then that theory that we can buy what we need simply doesn’t work.
Forest gate prices are now at record highs in the uk as well as Europe. The season for building timber, fencing, etc etc is about to kick off. This should be an interesting year. The question is “Is this a foretaste of the future?”
2016 was a big year at Hodge Fencing between moving into new premises and a whole load of new ideas brewing. 2017 should see those ideas become reality.
The new premises have a lot more room for stock. Hodge Fencing are now stocking IAE equipment, they can bring in anything from the IAE range, any suggestions as to what customers would like to see permanently stocked are always welcome
2017 will see the introduction of a range of fixings – chosen to work on the West Coast and specifically aimed at fencing.
The woodfuels venture continues to grow and to expand the range of products on offer at Argyll Woodfuels.
There is a new group venture in the pipeline aimed at creating a comprehensive garden service. This will involve bringing together a number of incredibly skilled contractors from all over Argyll.
We’ll be bringing out a range of kit sheds and offering a custom-made option in heavy duty materials through yet another group venture.
We have two new ranges of post in the pipeline as the industry finally gets to grips with the way treatment and timber types impact fence life.
So here 2017 will be about bringing more people with their skills and ideas together, extending the types of products we can provide and ensuring that everything we do is tailored to this area’s needs. We’ll also continue to work with the Argyll Fencers’ Co-operative Ltd to support local fencers.
Jolien Schure, CIFOR, reported that fuelwood is the main source of energy in the Democratic Republic of Congo, even among large urban populations. She said this decimates local forests and policies must be developed to reconcile tradeoffs between environment and livelihoods.
