The chipping cost of wood raw material for fuel in Estonian conditions

In Estonia up to now the producers of wood fuels have not yet adequately analysed the production and transport costs although it is known that the share of these costs form up to half of the final price of wood chips or hog fuel. With this in mind the goal of the case study was defined – to analyse the price formation of comminuted wood fuels in Estonian conditions. Within one year of the survey the initial data was collected from the company SLG Energy. Different types of machines (7 in total) were observed – wood chippers Jenz HEM 561, Jenz HEM 582, Heinola 910ES, and Doppstadt DH 608. All machines were equipped with a GPS tracking device which recorded the route and the fuel consumption and during the observation period all costs and revenues related to the concerned machines were accounted. It was determined that due to frequent repairs the maintenance costs of older machines were higher and productivity lower compared with new machines. The biggest item of expenditure turned out to be the fuel consumption. The second was the cost of repairs in the case of older machines and price in the case of new machines. Also the type of chipper had an impact on the production cost. Under the cumulative effect of various factors the production cost turned out to vary widely from 1.03 to 2.38 €/m_l³.