New investments will affect the supply-demand balance of sawdust in Finland and Sweden, which is a by-product with several industrial uses. In recent years, some Finnish sawmills have been struggling to find a buyer for their sawdust. Source: Timberbiz
In Sweden, the demand for sawdust is higher than in Finland and there are more companies using sawdust in their production.
The supply-demand balance of sawdust is subject to change in Finland and Sweden with many planned investments.
By-products sales usually account below 20% of sawmills’ revenues, and although most of this comes from selling wood chips, low price and weak demand of sawdust can lead to notable losses.
Reasons for the abundant supply of sawdust in Finland include increased sawing volumes and subsidies for the use of woodchips in electricity production, which has caused power plants to prefer them over sawdust.
The Finnish Sawmills Association had already warned that treating sawdust and wood chips differently in the energy industry weakens the sawmill industry’s competitiveness so severely that they might need to cut down production volumes.
The supply of sawdust is likely to increase as the growing demand for pulpwood increases overall annual harvesting and consequently also the supply of saw logs.
