Executives from North America’s leading producers of industrial wood pellets were all on hand at the fifth Wood Bioenergy Conference & Expo held April 11-12 at the Omni Hotel at CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
The event, which was hosted by Wood Bioenergy magazine, featured 25 presentations and 60 exhibitors.
“If you wanted to talk to the world’s leaders of industrial wood pellets production for export markets, they were all here,” comments conference co-chairman Rich Donnell. “Not many events can bring them altogether in one setting, and I’m extremely appreciative they included us in their obviously busy schedules.”
Thomas Meth, co-founder and executive vice president of Enviva; Richard Peberdy, vice president of Drax; Rob McCurdy, CEO of Pinnacle Renewable Energy; Thomas Reilley, founder and chairman of Highland Pellets; and Harold Arnold, president of Fram Renewable Fuels, all made presentations and held question and answer sessions.
Thomas Meth
Rob McCurdy
Thomas Reilley
Harold Arnold
In addition, the world’s leading consultant authority on industrial wood pellets, Bill Strauss, founder of FutureMetrics, led off the conference with his talk on the future of industrial wood pellets markets.
While recognizing numerous challenges brought on by evolving export markets, they expressed optimism for the emergence of those markets and increased industrial wood pellets production demand, and consequently of the need for more industrial wood pellets production capacity.