north america:prices steady

摘要

Spot activity in North American wood pellet markets re-mained scarce this week amid low summer demand,with several of the larger producers continuing to focus on meet-ing or expanding long-term contracts. Fob values were flat for spot and forward curve pricing. US Southeast prices were assessed between$158-162/t fob in July,with that range expected to rise to$163-166/t fob by October. US supply should expand by more than 1.35mn tons of pellets in 2015 as Drax brings two pellet mills in the US Southeast on line and E-Pellets meets its objective of bringing the newly acquired Louisiana Pacific mill in Athens, Georgia into production by the third-quarter.Despite the expected influx of supply,most US producers anticipate demand to exceed beyond supply by next year.California-based Rentech is also expected to bring a 400,000t/yr pellet plant on line in Ontario,Canada by Q4 2014 that will supply the UK utility market.