Your Average February, Measure What Matters, House Introduces Farm Bill Text – Programs Important to PFI Remain in Place, Save the Date – PFI Annual Conference Scheduled for June 15-17
Your Average February
February typically marks the beginning of the wind-down for the heating season. Sandwiched between January, with an average U.S. total sales volume of 136,720 tons, and March at 79,555 tons, the month typically finds producers replacing depleted inventory. In 2019, producers sold 169,714 tons of wood pellets, a high-water mark for the month, and just two years ago, in 2024, sales sagged to 91,589 tons.
February Averages - in tons
East
Sales – 65,737
Production – 85,597
Inventory –104,829
avg. inventory build –27,138
West
Sales –29,431
Production –36,449
Inventory –41,738
avg. inventory build – 9,901
South
Sales – 12,988
Production –25,143
Inventory –26,639
avg. inventory build –11,494
All U.S.
Sales –108,209
Production – 147,189
Inventory – 177,809
avg. inventory build – 46,228
The Climate Prediction Center’s 8-14 day outlook (see below), shows a warming trend through the beginning of March across most of pellet land, but in an article about this winter that ran in the Wall Street Journal (see Industry News – warning, paywall), it was reported that the largest weekly natural gas stockpile depletion since 2010 occurred during the last week of January. During this time of year, the weather can change quickly. While the Climate Prediction Center suggests higher-than-normal temperatures through the end of the month, the 10-day forecast in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, shows mostly below-freezing temperatures overnight through the end of February. While temperatures may modulate in the back half of the month, I suspect this February will see only a modest inventory build. The smallest February inventory build number was posted in February of 2018, when inventory increased just 8,131 tons. The year prior, inventories actually shrank by 2,381 tons. I suspect the inventory build will still be positive once that data is reported, but an inventory increase of just 10,000 tons or so wouldn’t surprise me at all. Understanding the inventory position as we exit the heating season will be critical for producers to know in time to act on it, which leads me to…
Measure What Matters
Our frustration with the timeliness of the Monthly Densified Biomass Fuel Report remains. Late last month, September 2025 data was published, bringing the report back to a fourth-month lag. Since its publication, the report has been published with a two-month lag. In February, the report should publish the November data. This lack of visibility to timely marketplace information creates real challenges for producers and retailers working to ensure steady consumer access to wood pellets without tying up more cash than is necessary.
Under normal circumstances, the questions I raised about February production, sales, and final inventory positions would be answered for everyone in the pellet supply chain with the publication of February 2026 data in the first week of May. If the report continues along at its current pattern, the February data won’t be available to producers until July, well into the industry’s traditional inventory-building season (March – July). By the time the data is released, producers are left with very little, if any, production time to react to anything they may glean from the report. The importance of returning the report to its traditional two-month lookback cannot be overstated, and the Pellet Fuels Institute started a Congressional outreach effort to draw attention to the report’s struggles and return it to its traditional data release pattern.
Please watch the Pellet Wire for updates on our effort to bring this vital industry report to its traditional publication calendar.
House Introduces Farm Bill Text – Programs Important to PFI Remain in Place
On Friday, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA) released Farm Bill reauthorizing language titled the Farm, Food and National Security Act of 2026. A committee markup of the measure is scheduled for February 23.
There are several provisions in the proposal that PFI has been advocating. In the Forestry Title, the measure reauthorizes, renames, and enhances the Community Wood Facilities Grant program, which funds wood heat and biomass heat and power projects. The measure upgrades and bumps up the monetary level that could be awarded to individual facilities. It also reauthorizes and modernizes the Wood Innovation Grant (WIG) program by reducing the non-federal match requirement, among other changes. WIG has been effective at helping stand up mass timber/cross-laminated timber projects across the country.
In the Energy Title, the bill reauthorizes the Bioenergy Program for Advanced Biofuels through 2031, although the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law last year included the same language. This title also increases the loan limit to $50 million under the Rural Energy for America Program and includes several other provisions that incentivize the use of sawmill residuals for energy.
Finally, there is also language codifying the concept of biomass energy carbon neutrality, but it would apply only to those programs overseen and administered by the Department of Agriculture.
The committee will report on the bill next week, but after that, it faces an uncertain future. Republicans hold a razor-thin majority in the House, and, thus far, the Farm Bill rewriting process has not been a bipartisan exercise. Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig (D-MN) issued a statement Friday, lambasting the measure as “failing to meet the moment” for farmers in that it does not address tariffs or include provisions to build markets for row crops, such as permitting year-round sales of E 15 gasoline. Moreover, the Senate Agriculture Committee has not produced a Farm Bill reauthorizing proposal, and indications are that one is not forthcoming any time soon.
PFI will keep you regularly apprised of progress on this process.
Save the Date – PFI Annual Conference Scheduled for June 15-17
After what feels like a month in an icebox, the warmth of summer seems impossibly distant, but concern about the heat during the PFI Annual Golf Tournament (co-located with our annual conference) is just four and a half months away. This summer, we will gather at the Grand Hotel in Point Clear, Alabama (just outside of Mobile).
PLEASE NOTE: The 2026 PFI Annual Conference will follow a Monday-Wednesday pattern instead of the Tuesday-Thursday pattern the conference followed last year.
The conference schedule is as follows:
Monday, June 15th – PFI Board Meeting
Tuesday, June 16th – PFI Golf Tournament/Opening Reception
Wednesday, June 17th – PFI Annual Conference/Panel Discussions
Please mark these dates in your calendar and watch the Pellet Wire for further announcements about the conference, including speakers, sponsorship opportunities, golf sign-ups, and travel recommendations. We look forward to seeing you there.
—Tim Portz
Executive Director
