Since the unexpected nuclear accident occurred at the Fukushima first nuclear power plant, Japanese government has been encouraging the investment on biomass power plants, which is safer and more clean. In China, the coal has been forbidden to be used as fuel in many industrial areas. The Chinese government has not approved to construct new coal power plant anymore since years ago. New biomass power plants, using pellets as fuel, are becoming popular in the coastal industrial areas in China. One mid-size biomass power plant would consume 20000-25000 tons of biomass pellets per month. The pellet market potential in Asia is very huge.

Empty Fruit Bunch (EFB) accounts for about 20%-23% of the Full Fruit Bunch (FFB). As one of the main residues from the palm oil mills, to make the EFB pellets has been becoming the mill owners’ primary concern in improving the value of the EFB. Similar with wood pellets and other biomass pellets, the EFB has good combustion performance as the fuel. The biomass pellet market in Asia has been booming in recent two years, thanks to the huge demand amount from China and Japan.

The EFB Pellet has the following advantages:

SIMEC has been devoted to the R&D of complete EFB pelletizing technology. We have rich experience in cooperating with the palm oil mills, so we know better how to help the mill owners set up the most appropriate EFB pellet production line.

First of all, the most important thing is the Site Selection of the project. The optimal site is close to the palm oil mill, meanwhile close to the seaport. Actually, most of the customers would set up the EFB pellet project beside or inside their palm oil mills. We also suggest doing the same. That would save the transportation cost of the EFB, utilize the extra electricity of the palm oil mills, and make sure the stable raw material supplying.

Some owners have several mills which are not in the same area, and they want to process the EFB raw material from all of their mills. We suggest to set up the EFB pellet projects in each mill individually.

But sometimes not all of the mills have sufficient power supplying to its EFB pellet project. In this case, palm EFB pellet plant could be located in the mill close to the seaport. The pellet plant will process pretreated palm EFB material from other mills. So in other CPO mills, we just install Palm EFB Pretreatment Plant that includes palm EFB chopping system, drying system, and crushing system. Other mills will just produce dried EFB dust and transport the dry dust to EFB pelletizing plant.

Secondly, the sufficient power supplying. Normally, palm oil mills have their own power generating system. Most of the palm mills use the steam turbine to generate the power for the production of the palm oil mill. There will be some extra power in the daily operation or more in the low season. So the customer should choose a flexible proposal according to the available power supplying. Flue gas from boilers can be utilized to dry palm EFB. But this needs on site engineering & design.

The last but not the least is the reliable target markets. As one kind of the main biomass pellets, EFB pellet has been becoming popular in the target market. The increasing market in China and Japan will need huge amount of biomass pellets produced in Southeast Asia in the near future. With high calorific value and low emission, it is becoming acceptable by the buyers to make sure their safe and sufficient biomass fuel supplying. With rich experience in the biomass pellet field, SIMEC has good relationships with many reliable EFB pellet buyers. We could help our clients establish the cooperation relationship with the pellet buyers.

SIMEC will provide our clients with project consulting services, reliable equipment supplying, project installation, commissioning and training of the complete EFB pellet projects. In time and overall after-sales services can help our clients do well on pellet mill operation.

Please do not hesitate to contact us at info@simecpellet.com if you need to get the most appropriate proposal for your EFB pellet plant.