Norway-headed biomass and waste-derived fuel suppliers Geminor AS has announced that a cargo of over 3 000 tonnes of Polish refuse-derived fuel (RDF) reached the Swedish Port of Hargshamn in early November. This is the first RDF bulk import for Geminor from Eastern Europe to Sweden.
The first shipment of baled and wrapped Polish RDF is part of an annual 18 000 tonnes contract with Swedish district heating plants. The opening cargo of 3 145 tonnes left Gdansk harbour on November 4, 2020, and arrived on the Swedish east coast Port of Hargshamn two days later.
The first vessel with RDF from Poland opens a new and important import route to Sweden. Having access to a new market is important for many reasons, but mainly it will help to stabilize and securing deliveries to our national off-takers, and partially compensate for the loss of volumes from the UK during COVID, said Per Mernelius, Country Manager Sweden at Geminor.
The coming shipments from Poland will be delivered to the Port of Hargshamn and to the Port of Norrköping – both on the east coast of Sweden.
The new stream constitutes a milestone for Geminor in Sweden. Presently, the national tax on waste incineration is affecting the heating plants with reduced gross margins on waste incineration. Swedish district heating is under severe economic pressure in view of low electricity prices and increased charges for CO2 emissions, and it has therefore been necessary to find new markets for combustible waste in cooperation with the heating plants, said Per Mernelius.
According to Andrzej Zientarski, Geminor’s Country Manager in Poland, the RDF export from Poland to Sweden and other Scandinavian countries could soon reach several hundred thousand tonnes annually.
Geminor becomes the first mover of big-scale waste streams from Poland to the Nordics, but our goal is to deliver sustainable and reliable solutions for alternative fuels all over Europe. All existing TFS’s to the Nordics give us the possibility to export over 300 000 tonnes per year – where Sweden will be our biggest import market. Both the volumes and the quality of the Polish waste so far makes Poland a very promising market as we enter 2021, said Andrzej Zientarski.
