Newly established arburthnott wood pellet factory in Aberdeenshire

Summary of Report

Press Release
12/11/2007


Arbuthnott Wood Pellets (AWP), a newly established rural business located 20 miles south of Aberdeen, has taken delivery of Ł1 million worth of state-of-the-art building and equipment capable of producing two tonnes of wood fuel pellets per hour. When the plant becomes operational in early December, AWP will become the first commercial producer of wood pellets in North-East Scotland.



Timber to manufacture the wood pellets will come from sustainable local supplies within a 50 mile radius of the plant; softwood conifer timber from 200 hectares on the Arbuthnott Estate and other local estates that make up the 9000 hectares of timber co-operative, DWP Harvesting. AWP’s brand of wood pellets will be marketed as `Stovies’ and available for delivery throughout the North East.



Owner of the business, Keith Arbuthnott confirmed that everything is on schedule for a December start:”The first successful commercial production of wood fuel pellets in North East Scotland is an important achievement for us as a business and a milestone for the area. It begins to reap the economic benefits of this important renewable energy source. The UK has lagged behind other European countries in promoting the uptake of biomass as a heat and energy source but with ever rising oil and gas prices combined with the obvious environmental benefits , the market potential for wood fuel in the UK is huge.



“AWP has the capacity to produce up to 300 tonnes of pellets per week so we have plenty of scope to cope with rising demand. We have employed a supervisor to run the plant and envisage recruiting at least one more individual in the near future.”



The specialized equipment for grinding and pelleting has been made in Germany by Amandus Kahl and the infrastructure and bagging plant comes from a firm near Colchester called Turner Process Equipment. The equipment is housed on 1000 square metre building on a new 0.5 hectare site on the Arbuthnott Estate near Inverbervie.

December 27, 2007