One of the plant we sold have a more advance furnace which reduce manpower and also ease of operation .
As pelleting need very accurate moisture content , the Hot Gas Generator help tremendously especially for big scale operation and also for less experience operator .
The Moisture Content of dust was constantly within ± 1% MC after exiting the dryer . This eliminates one of the most important varible in pelleting , in my previous post I mentioned that MC consistency are very important for good pelleting .
To explain a bit why the Hot Gas Generator helps a lot and normal furnace have it's pertinent issues . Normal furnace feeding of fuel is by hand , worker tend to overfeed the furnace which have small grate , by doing so the worker will have longer time to sit , by doing so too the temperature of the furnace will fluctuate through very wide range which cause drying inconsistency . Hot Gas Generator feed fuel automatically at set parameter and flame in furnace can be control by fan , this will give consistent flame in furnace continuously thus consistent Moisture Content of the sawdust output from dryer .
Maybe I am not convincing enough in my statement that PELLETING is very difficult .
My records and visits to many pelleting plant , be it Wood or EFB Pellet , till todate the failure is nearly approaching 20 plant , big and small included . Definitely the number is much higher than this figure .
Potential Investor must understand the reason behind it to figure out why so many failure in this industries .
I append the major factor for the failure :
1 ) Wrong Machineries
Pelleting process need very high pressure to bind the dust back into pellet , many machineries are not able to cope with the HIGH PRESSURE and thus will be damage before it even start to really produce pellet .Talking about pressure , do you know how it work ?
Pelleting need dry dust , dryer are needed to do the job , that is why American Dryer price are in the range of USD1 Million and above , the reason is you need consistent Moisture Dust to be able to produce consistently good grade pellet , otherwise there will be no pellet at all . I doubt many understand the science of drying !!
Small Pellet Mill smaller than 500 kg / hour are a definite no no unless you are willing to put your money to burn , go calculate the returns !!!
Go look at my video on Wood Pellet Manufacturing again , look at the rate of output and then compare the price of machineries . Then go visit the supplier and look at their output to be convince .
The above are only 20% of the main factor , if you do not know about the above , please do not invest , do your homework again , don't waste the precious cash for FAILURE .
2 ) Service and Training
I did mentioned earlier about this . The machineries from China is cheap because they do not provide proper Service and Training , this cost will easily increase their pricing by at least 20% . Low price act as an inducement for potential investor , so many will jump in but end up without anyone to turn to when failure stare at them
Supplier of machineries are just supplier , I am convince many are great Marketeer , they have never run a pelleting plant before . So when the going gets tough the supplier do not get going , they just ignore you .... , sounds familiar I guess .
Supplier are from China , they are not locals , they cannot stay long to guide and train local staff , so you can guess what will happen if problems start to crop up , who you gonna call !!
3 ) Experience and Skill
Ask yourself , how much you know about Biomass and Manufacturing , I would say , if you are going to invest based on the so many inquiries you get from the market , please keep your cash in the Bank , at least it earn interest . If you do not have over few years on Material experience and few years in manufacturing it is a definite no no to invest
Do you have an enquiring and analytical mind ? Every action will have a reaction , when something happen there must be REASONS why it happen , it cannot happen just out of nothing . There is a Chinese saying , Die also don't know because of what !! I am saying this because this will happen many many times and you will need your skill and experience to overcome it
Mark my word , go check around before you really decide to invest in this industry . There are too many failure which is not good for this industry overall .
I get many calls enquiring about pelletisation of EFB ( Empty Fruit Bunch ). We did sample production many months back , it was easy for us as EFB is a single species raw material as compared to wood sawdust where the range of wood density varies widely which is difficult to control during material preparation . You can see the quality of EFB Pellet from the test run was of higher quality in terms of length and density ( Shinier ) . The tricks of getting good quality EFB Pellet is at the material preparation side . If the input quality is good and with properly setup Pellet Mill there will be no problem in pelleting EFB .
EFB Pelleting Plant is more expensive compared to Wood Pelleting Plant as material preparation section will be needed to process EFB strand into smaller particles . EFB Input can be in the form of Whole Bunch EFB or Shredded EFB . Shredded EFB is the result of EFB being pressed in Palm Oil Mill for additional oil extraction .
EFB Plant setup are therefore different from Wood Pellet Plant because of additional machineries and thus planning ahead will bring tremendous profit later .
In the case ot Shredded EFB or Pressed EFB , it need to be cut to shorter length . Thereafter , I would like to Dry it here when the EFB is in short length . But there are other ways to do this depending on your setup and dryer capability .
Material Sizing is very important before the material enter pellet mill otherwise if the strand is too long it will choke the Pellet Mill and jammed the machine . This is where the skill and experience comes into play .
Some say Flat Die Pellet Mill is better and some argue Ring Die is as good , this depends on the " DRIVER " if you get what I mean !!!
The good pellet mill is the one that give you good quality pellet and high efficiency with minimal maintenance and downtime .
" DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS STUNT WITHOUT PROFESSIONAL GUIDANCE "
There are many cases of failure to do it right from start and in the process losses are huge . Get correct advice from reputable and reliable supplier with know how to start . Many a times the seller of machineries just want to close sales and promise you the sky where in fact ( and most does ) they do not have the skill to run a pellet plant , worst if their machineries are not reliable . I have been to many plant which is a failure , my statistic , 7 - 8 out of 10 are failures or loss plenty of money before they can even start to make profit .
Quality Control and Research and Development Programme
Manufacturing is define as :
The process of converting raw materials , components or parts into finished goods that meet a customer's expectations or specifications .
That being said , I would like to add , to be able to make profit the whole process is a race against time to reach optimum level of operation in shortest possible time .
As of now I believe there are more than 10 wood pellet plant in Malaysia , probably over half have difficulties in producing high quality pellet and running at low efficiencies . Some are not running at all . I admit mine are also having problems with breakdown here and there , but importantly improvement are carried out after each obstacles thus weakness becomes strength .
Wood Pelleting are more an arts rather than skill . There are just too many variables especially for China Made Machines .
Unless and until you get all the parameter right , it is near to impossible to get high efficiency and quality .
In many organisation QC and R & D are lacking especially in the SME . This is the nature of business as it is too costly to setup and followup . But without these you would be FLYING BLIND , that is what happen and the blame is simple , on the machine . No doubt , China Machine is bad but there are ways to go around to get it better . Unless you are willing to invest in American or European Machines which will cost a bomb .
In wood pelleting , the person in charge MUST be able to setup proper recording so that improvement can be carried out . Proper records are just like a GPS in a foreign country . You use it ( the records ) to see :
1 ) Who can help
2 ) What happened
3 ) Where are you now and where are you going
4 ) When can you arrive
5 ) Why things happen
6 ) How did it happen
Remember the 5 W's and H
!! GHOSTBUSTER !! SOUNDS FAMILIAR
Imagine that you are starting , you get into problem , the supplier of the machines did not give correct procedure ( friend , they are seller of machines , they will promise you sky to sell , they are not production man , how do you expect them to give full range of advice when we are paying pittance for the machines ) and your machine are damage or you are running at very low effciency .
What do you do ???
You try and try , after 2 months time loss you give up , losses amounts to RM50,000 or more , you still want to carry on but do not know where to start and when can solve all this problems . Sounds very familiar , it happen to me too !!
What do you do ??? or better WHO YOU GONNA CALL !!! GHOSTBUSTER , CALL ME .
For now enjoy the song & video .
Word of Advise , if you are not able to solve the problems in 2 months , it is not possible for me to solve it by phone , it is just impossible , there are just too many parameters and you will need tools to help just like the GPS .
With all the advice and tools hopefully you are on the way for higher efficiency and higher quality of wood pellet .
Many people called but are unwilling to pay ( no free lunch ) , so advice from the phone are limited in quality , they try the method advised still doesn't work , it won't work , we take 6 months of blood sweat and tears to perfecting our method , so with 30 minutes advise you expect it to work , I wish how simple it is .
In fact I would advise , after you have commission your machine and it does not perform to expectation within 2 weeks , better call me immediately for consultation , if not you will lose 2 months at least and over RM50,000 for trial and error .
I received many enquiries from potential investor on setting up wood pellet or EFB pellet Plant .
Most of the questions asked are as follows :
1 ) Price of Pellet Production Line
2 ) Capacity per Hour per Pellet Mill
3 ) I want to visit your factory in production
We are more than glad to received any visitors and offer quotation for our pellet line .
In my opinion , what potential investors should have asked are :
1 ) Effciency of the Pellet Production Line
2 ) Maintenance of the machineries especially the pellet mill
3 ) Return on Investment ( ROI )
Efficiency
We claim that our pellet mill and the whole line can produce > 1 TPH for a pellet mill with 420 internal diameter die , CONSISTENTLY over prolong period of production time . I believe not many can claim this !!!
You can buy Pellet Mill from so many supplier from China are reasonable price , most can produce 1 TPH consistently but not over prolong period of time .
Pellet Mill from China are still in infant stage as the same pellet mill are for feed production . Therefore it is not as robust as machines from USA or Europe which price are at least double .
Efficiency are very important in Pellet Production as the capacity are very small i.e. 1 TPH per machine , you need to be efficient to make profit . If your machine can only run 8 hours per day but others can operate 15 hours per day , others will make double your profit .
In short pellet manufacturing is a race against time .
Maintenance
Many stories from friends regarding their pellet mill performance .
Die cracking , roller bearing need constant change , pellet refused to come out , need additives for smooth production and etc .
1 piece of Die cost RM5,000 , should last 500 ton production , if the die crack by 250 ton , then your cost will go up to RM20 per ton instead of RM10 per ton . Not mentioning down time and failure to deliver to customer will cost you more .
Return on Investment
I am not sure how many of the potential investor have data on the profitability of wood pellet manufacturing . But I believe most do not have complete and accurate data and depends on the fact that they want to go into this business as there is so many enquiries for this product .
This business are definitely lucrative as of now if you have this advantages :
1 ) ample supply of raw material
2 ) good wood pellet production line
A friend of mine once said if you get the correct combination of raw material , machines and customer , you are simply printing money every second .
Conservatively , Our Wood Pellet Line should have payback within 2 year and ROI of over 6% per month .
We are a bit delayed in the installation of our 2 Ton Per Hour ( 2 TPH ) Whole Line Wood Pellet Plant . New date for commissioning have been push back to End of April 2011 .
Lots of minor problems with China Whole Line Design and Installation .
I admit we overlook a few areas and also the professionalism of China Machinery Supplier are in doubt especially in Project Management and also the linkage between each section in the Whole Line Plant .
But in the process we also learn a lot for our future expansion plan and possibly our new 2nd line maybe in 6 month to 1 year time .
We now believe that our pellet mill are one of the best from China and hopefully when it is in production it should give us above 1.2 TPH for the Model 420 unit with minimal maintenance .
Here are some of the photos during installation of machineries at my plant .
Current Pellet Mill / Pellet Mill Plant from China have the following problems :
a ) Pelet Mill Die cracking after short time of usage
b ) Roller Bearing need constant change
c ) Constant Jamming in the Pellet Mill Die Chamber
d ) Low Density of Wood Pellet Produced
e ) Sawdust need additives during production to ensure smooth output of pellet from Pellet Mill
We also found out that many China supplier are not genuine factory owner which means they buy and sell the machineries , thus technical wise they are not up to standard unless they are supplying the best machines from the best fabricator . Normally this is not the case as the buyer will haggle about pricing , therefore the supplier will tend to get the cheaper machines which will create problems in the end . How would you know which is the best machines from China , there is more than 100 supplier of pellet mill machineries from China , everyone say they supply the best . Unless you want to CAMP there to search for the best machines . For the record , I did 3 tour of duty to China to search for the best machineries .
Pre-requisite of establishing a Wood / EFB Pellet Manufacturing Business :
1 ) Stable source of sawdust or EFB
2 ) Total Investment - RM1 Million including machineries , electricity supply , local steel fabrication , forklifts & etc for a 2 TPH Whole Line Plant
3 ) Some technical knowledge on machineries
4 ) For now , market should not be a problem , it is a matter of pricing
Lately ( the last 3 months ) , my blog have generated tremendous search for wood pellet maybe due to the current high price of fossil fuel which at the time of writing , Nymex Oil Futures is at over USD100 per barrel . Inflation in China is also causing a problem as Wood Pellet Plant pricing have also increase from initial RM750,000 earlier to over RM850,000 now , at last count . Sawdust price have also been increasing locally . If price continue to rise , it might not be viable anymore to invest in Wood Pellet Business unless Wood Pellet price play catch up in the near term .
Pellet Mill are the " HEART " for Wood Pellet Production , Very Important . All other equipment are Ancillaries .
Pellet Mill Equipment from China are still at a very infant stage as compared to American or European Pellet Mill , but pricing wise , it is only 1 / 5 the price .
Unless you are going for very high output and have the investment capacity to invest for very long term , China Machines are of better choice .
And even so , you have so many Suppliers , Hundreds maybe , some are Merc , some Toyotas and some Protons , you could guess what I mean , pricing starts from USD20,000 to USD50,000 / unit for a Pellet Mill and Whole Line Plant can range from USD200,000 to USD650,000 for a 2 TPH Line . We have scour many part of China for the right machines .
The lower range will get you to do more maintenance and lower production and the higher range might not be feasible for Malaysia Environment . So , choose wisely .
Due to it's infancy , choosing the right Pellet Mill are important as it have the following problems that need to be address :
1 ) Die Chamber too Hot thus Die will break under stress ( Die cost RM6,000 / unit )
2 ) 24 hours operation not possible
3 ) Standard Die size of 420mm Diameter ( the normal Model SZLH420 MZLH420 ) definitely cannot produce more than 2 TPH per machine , if all conditions are right maybe you would get 1.5 TPH , this is where the learning curve start , how soon can you achieve optimum production , simple calculation , shortage of 0.5 TPH X 2 machine X 16 hour / day X 26 day / month X 3 months X RM100 / ton = RM124,800 in Sales Value , so imagine the savings if it is longer than 3 months . ( Some Manufacturer are claiming above 2 TPH , even 3 TPH )
The Pellet Mill we chose have somehow resolve partially some of the above problems with the right combination of ancillaries equipment . In our opinion it is of reasonable pricing and technically capable to handle over 2 TPH wood pellet production with minimum staffing .
You are invited to visit us once production starts .
The problem above may need another 5 years to solved as the supplier of this machines learn from mistakes and improved on it .
Our target is to invest in reasonably priced machine , high efficiency and low maintenance , so that we can recoup our investment in shortest time possible and have a decent profit to show .
The lower range will get you to do more maintenance and lower production and the higher range might not be feasible for Malaysia Environment . So , choose wisely .
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