RusForest AB is to acquire wood pellet-making plants in Sweden, Latvia and move the machinery to Russia.
The Russian sawmiller, which has been blazing an acquisition trail recently, is to buy Clean Tech East Holding’s subsidiary Eastern Bio Holding (EBH) – which has pellet factories in Ystad, Sweden and Liepaja, Latvia with a combined capacity of 100,000 tonnes of pellets per year.
It is also buying another subsidiary Bio Energy Nord Ltd, which has a project plan to establish a large-scale pellet plant in Arkhangelsk in northwest Russia.
“The production of wood pellets on a large scale is an attractive next step for RusForest to increase value-added production, leading to a better utilisation of the byproducts generated in the company’s sawmill production and an important diversification of the company’s current business,” said RusForest.
The company said it wanted to move EBH’s equipment to Arkhangelsk “as soon as possible”, but the deal is conditional on approval by a Clean Tech East extraordinary general meeting on December 9.
RusForest, which operates in Arkhangelsk and eastern Siberia, controls forest leases with an annual allowable cut of 3.6 million m3 and manufactures a wide range of sawn timber products made from larch, pine and spruce.
It is targeting an annual sawn production of up to 850,000m3 over the next four years.
