In the Q4 2022 edition of the Forisk Research Quarterly (FRQ), we analyzed the success rate of export pellet projects making it to the groundbreaking phase. This post is a spiritual successor to that sidebar. Leveraging over ten years of mill announcement data from the Forisk North American Mill Capacity Database, we look at the possible cumulative demand of biomass projects that were canceled and projects where the new demand has been “realized” with this analysis only covering “greenfield demand” without contemplating expansions or closures of existing facilities.

Biomass projects are inherently speculative in nature, with the expectation that a new project will operate at scale with unproven technology or enjoy policy support to ensure economic viability. In 2015, Forisk tracked only 290 thousand tons of demand from a canceled project. As the biomass project market matured (mainly for export white pellets), the amount of canceled demand has steadily increased. Looking forward, Forisk is now forecasting roughly 55 million tons of cumulative demand for canceled projects by 2027. For realized demand, Forisk tracked about  3.2 million tons of new demand in 2015 that has increased to almost 19 million tons of cumulative realized demand by the end of 2025. Viewed from another perspective, only 28% of the projected cumulative demand from biomass mills has actually reached the market by 2025.