Italian investor starting pellet production in Srbac

Geo. Pellet d. o. o., registered in Banja Luka and run by investors from Padua and Trieste, is planning to open a pellet factory in the municipality of Srbac, located at Bosnia and Herzegovina’s northern border. Glas Srpske newspaper’s portal said the facilities of G&A Koligas d. o. o., former Greek investment in the village of Sitneši, will be equipped by the end of 2015.

Municipality chief Drago Ćirić said the company will employ 25 people and that it will have a revenue of BAM 5 million (EUR 2.56 million) a year. Ten workers are already hired for construction and installation of a power substation and the silos, he said, adding local firms supply the material. The first machines could be put to work in November, while the plan is to get full capacity going in January, Glas Srpske added.

According to media reports, the owners bought the buildings from Sberbank as Koligas’s mortgage, and the factory is planned for 15,000 tonnes of pellet a year, mostly for the Italian market. The demand for the factory’s planned capacity is 45,000 cubic metres of wood per year, where 30% would be supplied by the public forest enterprise of the Republic of Srpska entity and 30% from neighbouring Croatia, while the rest would come from local suppliers.

There is already a pellet factory in the municipality of Srbac. Ensa BH d. o. o. has been operating its pellet factory in the Srbac village of Pribiljevci for a decade now, manufacturing from sawdust and waste wood. It employs 40 people, Glas Srpske said, adding the company was bought from Slovenian owners two years ago by five workers, saving the factory from bankruptcy.

After a return visit of a Luxembourg-based investment fund’s representatives to Srbac, financial support was announced from the Grand Duchy to start two enterprises, one of which would produce electricity and heat, and the other one vegetables in greenhouses, Radio Srbac said in June.