UK secondary fuels market to stabilise in 2022

Exports of secondary fuels, such as refuse-derived fuel (RDF) and solid recovered fuel (SRF), from England fell by 40,055t in March this year, compared to the same period a year earlier. March 2022 saw exports of 135,506t, versus 175,561t in March 2021, according to data from Footprint Services. Of the March 2022 total, recycling specialist Geminor UK accounted for 29,196t, or 21.5 per cent of the English export market. But the company believes the market is now bottoming out. 

“We have seen a considerable change in the UK market since 2018, when the annual export from England was just over 3Mt. In practice, the export market this year is half what it was five years ago,” said James Maiden, country manager for Geminor UK. In total, Geminor handled over 42,000t of RDF and SRF in March this year, exporting more than 280,000t over the last 12 months. According to Mr Maiden, the decline in exports is starting to level off and a more stable English export market of 1-1.5Mta is expected.  

“The internal market has grown rapidly and new offtakers are taking a bigger share of the domestic volumes. The new plants are also rigged for optimal capacity and in demand of low calorific value fuels, which has gradually reduced the share of these RDF streams for export,” explains Mr Maiden. “At the same time, COVID and Brexit, and the ongoing transport challenges brought about by the war in Ukraine, have made exports more expensive.”