Andusia is delighted to announce that it has reached a key milestone with the export of 2.5 million tonnes of refuse-derived fuel (RDF) to Europe for energy recovery.
Since the company’s launch in 2012, Andusia has experienced consistently strong growth and is now the UK’s largest independent exporter of RDF.
The 2.5 million tonne (Mt) export landmark follows the 2Mt milestone Andusia hit in July 2023, demonstrating the buoyancy of the RDF export market over the past 12 months.
“This is an incredible achievement and testament to the hard work of our team. We’ve come a long way since hitting our first milestone – the export of 1 million tonnes back in 2018 – and we continue to build on our successes, evolving with the market to deliver what our customers need,” said Steve Burton, co-founder of Andusia.
The company is now predicting a record year for 2024 as European demand for waste-based fuel shows no signs of slowing down.
Latest projections show that Andusia is on track to export 450,000 tonnes of RDF this year – an increase of over 100% compared to 2022 where it handled around 210,000 tonnes.
A number of factors are driving this growth. Industry consolidation in recent years mean there are less RDF exporters and as a result, Andusia has taken on more supply contracts and increased its market share.
“In 2015 there were 49 exporters and today there are only 20 exporters. We’ve seen our customer base increase, and many of these relationships are evolving into long-term contracts as businesses seek a stable and secure outlet for their waste,” said Mark Terrell, director of Andusia.
Rising landfill taxes in the UK coupled with the lack of domestic residual waste treatment infrastructure are also making RDF exports a more economic option for many British waste producers.
“We expect this trend to continue, especially into 2025. There is low investor confidence in the UK market when it comes to new EfW projects, so we expect European plants to take advantage of this when it comes to securing future feedstock security,” added Terrell.
Andusia now exports on average 8,000 tonnes of waste each week to 25 energy-from-waste (EfW) facilities across six countries in Europe.