From PG News Daily
Drax, a UK-based energy company that controls much of the trans-oceanic wood pellet trade hasannounced that its Yorkshire, England power plant will stop burning wood from BC within the next year. Drax owns seven plants in BC, which turn wood from primary forests into pellets that are shipped overseas to be burned for electricity.
“The decision to stop feeding the Yorkshire plant with BC pellets will change almost nothing on the ground in BC, unfortunately,” explains Conservation North director Michelle Connolly. “BC pellet mills mainly serve Japan, which has taken about 75% of the pellet export share over the last few years. This trend continues and will get worse if Asian markets expand.”
Japan imported 1.29 million tonnes of pellets from Canada in 2025.
In 2020, Conservation North documented the issuing of primary forest logging licenses by the B.C. government to pellet companies. In 2022 BBC Panorama and CBC Fifth Estate investigations revealed that Drax was logging old growth and other natural forest in B.C. Throughout 2023, Drax obtained logs and chipped wood from the rarest old growth forests in the province.
Drax continued to procure old growth forest wood for their B.C. mills in January of 2024, and throughout 2025. In August of last year the company was audited by the Financial Conduct Authority for its statements on biomass sourcing. Drax continues to obtain its woody raw material from old growth forests in BC.
“Despite the practice being banned in other countries, the BC government continues to allow industrial logging in forests that have never been logged before. That material goes to sawmills, pulp mills and Drax,” states Jenn Matthews, a volunteer with Conservation North.
Drax cites economic challenges as the reason for the decision to stop sending BC material to the Yorkshire plant to burn. “If there has been a financial hit to Drax it’s because awareness was raised here in BC of the ecological consequences of the industry,” adds Matthews.
The BC government has a crediting system in place whereby logging companies get an equivalent volume of wood for every load of pellet-grade logs harvested and delivered to Drax. If Canfor, for example, brings 500 logs to a Drax pellet mill, Canfor gets 500 logs of any quality for itself. This is called the Grade 4 Credit system, and it magnifies the logging footprint of the pellet industry.
According to Connolly: “As long as Drax is here, we lose the same amount of wildlife habitat whether our forests end up burning in the UK or elsewhere.”
