With a production of about 14.3 MMT in 2017, about fifty percent of global production, the EU is the world’s biggest producer of wood pellets. In 2016, production dipped slightly mainly due to the relatively warm winter of 2015/2016. Compared to production plants in North America, plants in the EU are mainly small or medium-sized. Most of the main pellet producing countries have a sizeable domestic market for residential heating pellets. Recent growing demand for pellets has supported a further increase in domestic production. Exceptions are Latvia, Estonia and Portugal, which are producing mainly for export for use in large scale power plants abroad.