More than 30 years ago, family-owned Grupo Transfradelos opened its doors as a forestry logging and transportation logistics company. As the Fradelos, Portugal-based business grew, management explored other services that would complement its current operation. Before long, Grupo Transfradelos developed a specialized handling service that included wood terminal management, as well as cargo ship loading and unloading services at several ocean ports. When the company’s management saw opportunity in the bioenergy market, they invested their resources into three wood pellet production plants and a state-of-the-art biomass power plant.
Today, Grupo Transfradelos is the umbrella company for several biomass organizations, including its three pellet plant companies: Tec Pellets, Stellep and Tresmasa. The company employs around 300 people and operates a fleet of 76 transport trucks, as well as more than 100 pieces of forestry equipment, including four Vermeer® HG4000 horizontal grinders.
Complementary business
According to Tiago Reis, manager and a member of the family who started Grupo Transfradelos, the rise of the bioenergy market was a contributing factor in the company’s expanding businesses. “We are always looking for opportunities to expand our organizational reach, and with our logging and transportation operations, establishing ourselves in the wood pellet industry was a natural fit,” he explains. “For those same reasons, we decided to build our own biomass power plant.”
Grupo Transfradelos’s complementary businesses aren’t just a means of expanding its reach, it’s also a competitive advantage for three wood pellet brands. “Very few pellet producers have complete control of the process,” says Reis. “We harvest our own raw material, transport it to a pellet plant where it is dried and either packaged or prepared for bulk shipment. We then handle the transportation logistics, whether it’s by roadway or by sea. Many other pellet producers subcontract out a large portion of that process. In order to control the entire value chain, we’ve had to invest heavily and take some risks, but in the end it has been worth it.”
Equipment investment
Part of the investment Reis is referring to is acquiring the equipment needed to support three wood pellet plants. “Grinders are an important part of our overall operations,” says Reis. “When we first began to develop the pellet plants project, we met with and heard presentations from several different grinder manufacturers. Based on those presentations and a demo, we selected what we felt would fit our needs the best.”
Grupo Transfradelos purchased its first Vermeer HG4000 horizontal grinder in 2013 after the Elmia Wood Forestry Show in Sweden. Since then, the company has added three more units to its fleet. “The HG4000 grinder’s versatility is what really sold us,” Reis explains. “We can have a unit in the forest chipping wood one day and back at the pellet plant the next grinding material to supply heat to the plant’s dryer boiler — that’s not possible with other grinders.”
Grupo Transfradelos’s 331 kW (445 hp) Vermeer HG4000 horizontal grinders have the unique ability to swap out its patented Series II duplex drum with an optional chip drum. “Being able to switch between grinding and chipping makes the HG4000 grinder an all-in-one machine that doesn’t require additional investment or special setup,” he says
Keeping production costs low is important for Grupo Transfradelos, and Reis says the dual function of the HG4000 grinder helps keep costs down. “Also, our Vermeer grinders can produce a tremendous amount of material with low diesel consumption,” he adds.
Needed support
Grupo Transfradelos relies on its wood grinders to supply material every day, so when a machine is in need of repair, fast parts and service support is critical to its overall operations. “The service Vermeer Portugal has given us over the years has been great,” says Reis. “They give us their full support, are knowledgeable about our businesses and have been there to help us grow.”
Bioenergy vested
Tec Pellets, Stellep and Tresmasa produce around 200,000 tonnes (220,462 U.S. tons) of pellets per year. Approximately half of that volume is exported to power plants in Europe, primarily in the United Kingdom, Belgium and Denmark, and are sold through specialized trading companies. The other half of the pellets produced are sold through a network of dealers for household use in Portugal and Spain. These bagged pellets meet ENplus certification for low emissions and high-energy value.
In addition to the pellet plants, Grupo Transfradelos recently signed a contract with Portugal’s main energy provider, EDP, to supply electrical power to the grind during the next 25 years. Reis says Probiomass, the company’s biomass power plant, is a natural addition for their business portfolio since they will be burning widely available biomass at a rate of approximately 300 tonnes (330 U.S. tons) per day.
The power plant required an investment of close to 40 million Euros to build and it has the capacity to produce 14.75 MW.
“We’re optimistic about the future of the bioenergy industry; the need for electricity will always be a reality and between our pellet plants and power plant, we are in a great spot to continue to grow,” concludes Reis.
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