Many countries have limited low‐cost biomass resources to satisfy their own demand for bioenergy; consequently, international trade in biomass in various liquid and solid forms is increasing. The aim of this study is to present a quantitative overview of the development of international biomass trade for energy purposes. This paper focuses on the main biomass producing and consuming countries, as well as exporters and importers of liquid and solid biofuels, such as wood pellets, biodiesel, and bio‐ethanol, and biomass products, for example industrial roundwood. The study discusses changes in trends that have occurred over the past decade, and investigates emerging energy biomass trade streams. Due to increased demand for wood pellets from the heating and industrial sectors, global wood pellet markets and international trade have increased significantly in the past decade. The United States and Brazil remain leaders in bio‐ethanol production with about 45 Mt and 24 Mt respectively. In recent years, Asian markets such as China (industrial roundwood), South Korea (wood pellets), Malaysia, and Indonesia (palm oil) have developed considerably. In the EU‐28, more than 60% of total palm oil consumption is used for energy purposes. The EU is the global leader in biomass for energy utilization and also the main importer of most biomass products, particularly wood pellets. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Torrefied biomass has considerable potential as a biomass fuel to replace coal in energy and process heat production. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the potential of torrefied biomass in different industries, both power and non-power generation industries, and considers the impact of such use on the international biomass market. The power generation sector has been so far the leader in testing torrefied biomass use with other industrial demand lagging behind. There are promising technical possibilities for greater torrefied biomass use in a number of other areas such as the steel, non-metallic minerals, as well as the pulp and paper industries. Although a large increase in torrefied biomass consumption by industry is not immediately foreseeable, industrial use by actors outside the energy generation sector could increase demand for torrefied biomass in general and, as a result, stimulate development of global torrefied biomass markets. Results show that the torrefied biomass demand significantly depends on the bioenergy markets. It seems that despite of the challenges, the growth of torrefied biomass demand will have a large progress in coming years.

The European Union has set ambitious targets of raising the share of EU energy consumption produced from renewable resources from 20% by 2020 to 27% by 2030. The aim of this paper is to assess the role of woody biomass in renewable energy as gross final energy consumption in the European Union (the EU-28). The paper identifies leading and lagging countries in biomass development by focusing on their current biomass use and forecasts future perspectives. The research compares and evaluates the role of biomass in renewable energy in the EU-28 focusing on countries' potential resources and policy support. The study shows that all countries are making efforts to reach the 20% target in 2020 and exhibit a trend of increasing renewable energy as gross final energy consumption towards the new target of 2030. Solid biomass plays an important role in reaching the EU's renewable energy targets. The majority of the EU-28 countries are close to reaching their national renewable energy targets and show a very attractive biomass development. Unless energy consumption decreases however, some member states will face serious problems in reaching their renewable energy target in 2020. Following our analysis, the largest problems occur in those MS having a relative highenergy consumption pattern: France, Germany and the United Kingdom. It is unlikely that they can comply with expected renewable energy demand, unless they mobilize more woody biomass from their available domestic potential (France, Germany) or considerably increase their woody biomass imports (mostly wood pellets) from elsewhere (United Kingdom). Keywords Definitions Bioenergy: Bioenergy refers to energy derived from biofuels. Biomass: Refers to the biodegradable fraction of products, waste and residues from agricultural (including vegetal and animal substances), forestry and related industries, as well as the biodegradable fraction of industrial and municipal waste.  Bioliquids. Refers to the liquid fuels made from biomass for energy purposes other than transport (i.e.heating and electricity). Gross inland consumption of energy (GIC) is the first aggregate in the national energy balances. It refers to "apparent" consumption and is derived from the formula that takes into account primary production, exports, imports and stock changes. It includes the primary energy from fossil fuels, from renewable energies (biomass, wind, solar, hydro), derived heat and trade of electrical energy. Gross final energy consumption (GFEC) is calculated from national energy balances. GFEC starts with the GIC data, after which transformation losses, distribution losses and own consumption of electricity and heat within the energy sector are subtracted. The GFEC data can be divided over the sectors involved in the energy consumption, after the subtraction of non-energy consumption (e.g. use of cokes for chemical products). At the end, we remain with final energy consumption by industry, transport and households [3].4

Current biomass production and trade volumes for energy and new materials and bio‐chemicals are only a small fraction to achieve the bioenergy levels suggested by many global energy and climate change mitigation scenarios for 2050. However, comprehensive sustainability of large scale biomass production and trading has yet to be secured, and governance of developing biomass markets is a critical issue. Fundamental choices need to be made on how to develop sustainable biomass supply chains and govern sustainable international biomass markets. The aim of this paper is to provide a vision of how widespread trade and deployment of biomass for energy purposes can be integrated with the wider (bio)economy. It provides an overview of past and current trade flows of the main bioenergy products, and discusses the most important drivers and barriers for bioenergy in general, and more specifically the further development of bioenergy trade over the coming years. It discusses the role of bioenergy as part of the bioeconomy and other potential roles; and how it can help to achieve the sustainable development goals. The paper concludes that it is critical to demonstrate innovative and integrated value chains for biofuels, bioproducts, and biopower that can respond with agility to market factors while providing economic, environmental, and societal benefits to international trade and market. Furthermore, flexible biogenic carbon supply nets based on broad feedstock portfolios and multiple energy and material utilization pathways will reduce risks for involved stakeholder and foster the market entry and uptake of various densified biogenic carbon carriers. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

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