PFI Visits Spearfish Pellet, Save the Date – PFI Annual Conference Scheduled for June 15-17
PFI Visits Spearfish Pellet
A special thank you to Eric Edwards and his team at Spearfish Pellet in Spearfish, South Dakota, for hosting me on a plant visit earlier this week. Like so many other plant visits, I left my conversation with the Spearfish team reminded of the incredible importance of the wood pellet market and reinvigorated to tell its story and protect the market you all serve.
Spearfish Pellet is situated just outside the northern boundary of the Black Hills National Forest and is co-located with a board plant operated by the Nieman company, a family-owned forest products business with four manufacturing sites across the West. The plant in Spearfish converts some of the area’s abundant Ponderosa pines into 1” boards of varying lengths and widths. Driving up to the plant gate, the rich perfume of newly-cut pine fills your nostrils.
Spearfish Pellet is an important manufacturer located on the eastern edge of the northern Rockies, serving wood pellet retailers in a region with limited production capacity. The producer of Spearfish is PFI-member High Mountain Processing in Walden, Colorado, nearly 400 miles away. For pellet consumers in eastern Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas, Spearfish is vital.
Spearfish’s story illuminates the value proposition and the talking points that PFI uses whenever we are advocating for the continuation and protection of our market. Converting round logs into square dimensional lumber generates waste. I stood and watched as logs were seen watching the rounded edges of each log drop onto a conveyor and head for the chipper. Additionally, I watched a walking floor trailer deliver a load of sawdust to the raw material barn, where it is introduced into a blend of chips, planer shavings, and sawdust that the production team at Spearfish has dialed in to assure maximum pellet quality.
I also listened intently as the production and sales team bemoaned the unseasonably warm winter and the dampening effect that it has on local pellet demand. At lunch, it was noted that nearby Rapid City was having its warmest winter since 1930-31. I didn’t fact-check, but PFI’s own Heating Degree Day index certainly corroborates. As of Monday, Rapid City is lagging the 10-year average by 21%. Looking west offers little relief, with Lewiston, Montana lagging the 10-year average by 18%.
This is nothing new for pellet producers who every year have to work to match up inbound residuals whose volume is not dictated by weather, with outbound pellets whose volume IS. For the team at Spearfish, I’ll be rooting for a cold and prolonged winter next season.
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.
