8 In December 2023 I visited Worcester in the Western Cape to consider the use of a grinder chipper that could be converted to a drum chipper. The equipment is used to grind down unwanted and/or old citrus trees into biomass. This biomass is then either sold back to the site owner or to a secondary market. Africa Biomass Company (ABC) essentially generates value out of waste wood. One of ABC’s machines was brought into Richards Bay Chipping facility to assist with the production of biofuel for two vessels in the earlier part of 2024. The project aims to chip around 80 000 tonnes in total. The chipper has performed well to date, and we are now considering a third possible biofuel vessel. The project is very limited in terms of intake of tonnes per day. The machine is running at approximately 50 tonnes per hour and has the wood chips running over a small Dabmar screen to ensure all over-size wood chips are removed. The chipping site is small and timber supplies require one or two vehicles on the site at any one stage. The site is a hive of activity with the plants rebuild so traffic control is paramount for the safety of all. Our next focus is to get the chipper to provide us with approximately 1000 tonnes per day. The small Dabmar screen (presently in place) is being replaced with a larger screen that can accommodate at least 100 tonnes of cargo per hour. This installation should be completed by mid-March. (Ryno Martyn – Operations Manager (Richards Bay Wood Chips)) Above: The temporary drum chipper Below: A dabmar screen to separate the oversized wood chips from correctly-sized chips
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