How industrial firewood is priced, weighed and delivered in Sri Lanka
Why the cheaper quote per tonne is often the more expensive fuel — and the six questions worth asking any supplier.
Two suppliers quote you for firewood. One is 15% cheaper per tonne. Which is the better buy? You cannot tell from the price alone — and the difference between them is usually not the price at all. It is water. This guide explains how industrial firewood is priced, weighed and delivered in Sri Lanka, and what to ask before you compare two quotes.
Why firewood is sold by weight, not volume
Firewood can be sold by the cubic metre, by the stack, by the lorry load, or by the tonne. Everything except weight is unreliable. A stack of loosely thrown logs and a stack of neatly packed billets can occupy the same space with very different amounts of wood in them. A "lorry load" depends entirely on the lorry and on how it was filled.
Weight removes that ambiguity, which is why industrial supply in Sri Lanka is quoted per metric tonne (MT) over a certified weighbridge. It is the honest basis — but it introduces a different problem, and that problem is the whole of this article.
The water problem
Wood is hygroscopic. Freshly felled hardwood can be 45–60% water by weight. When you buy a tonne of green firewood, up to half of what you paid for is water — and it gets worse, because your furnace then has to spend energy evaporating that water before the wood delivers any useful heat.
Here is the arithmetic. Take a tonne of wood with a dry-matter energy content of roughly 19 MJ/kg, and subtract the energy needed to evaporate the water it contains (about 2.4 MJ per kilogram of water):
| Moisture content | Dry wood per tonne | Water per tonne | Approx. usable energy | Relative value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50% — freshly felled | 500 kg | 500 kg | ~8,300 MJ | 100% |
| 40% | 600 kg | 400 kg | ~10,400 MJ | 125% |
| 30% | 700 kg | 300 kg | ~12,600 MJ | 152% |
| 20% — well seasoned | 800 kg | 200 kg | ~14,700 MJ | 177% |
Simplified calculation for illustration, assuming 19 MJ/kg dry matter and 2.4 MJ/kg latent heat of evaporation. Real boiler efficiency, species and bark fraction all shift the result.
A tonne of well-seasoned firewood delivers roughly three-quarters more usable heat than a tonne of freshly felled wood. So a supplier quoting 15% less per tonne for green wood is not cheaper. They are considerably more expensive per unit of heat, and you also pay to haul the extra water.
Compare quotes per unit of delivered heat, not per tonne. The only way to do that is to know the moisture content.
How weighing should work
A clean weighbridge procedure is simple and you are entitled to see it:
- Tare weight — the empty lorry is weighed before loading.
- Gross weight — the loaded lorry is weighed on the same certified bridge.
- Net weight — gross minus tare is the tonnage you are invoiced for.
- Ticket — you receive a weighbridge ticket showing all three figures, dated and identified to the vehicle.
If a supplier cannot produce a weighbridge ticket for a load, you have no basis on which to check the invoice. Ask for it as a matter of routine, not as a challenge.
Ex-depot versus delivered
Most quotations in Sri Lanka are made on one of two bases, and mixing them up is the most common reason two quotes look further apart than they are.
| Cost component | Ex-depot | Delivered |
|---|---|---|
| Standing timber and felling | Included | Included |
| Extraction to roadside depot | Included | Included |
| Weighing over certified bridge | Included | Included |
| VAT invoice and transport permits | Included | Included |
| Road haulage to your site | Buyer arranges | Included |
| Unloading at your site | Buyer | By arrangement |
Ex-depot is our standard basis. If you have your own lorries, or a haulier you already use, collecting from the depot is usually the cheaper route. If you would rather have it arrive at your gate, we quote haulage to your location — and for buyers in Sabaragamuwa and the Western Province that transport component is modest, because our estates are close by.
What to ask any firewood supplier
Whether or not you buy from us, these six questions will tell you most of what you need to know:
- What species is it? A named species behaves predictably. "Mixed firewood" does not.
- What is the moisture content, and is it green or seasoned? This is the question that determines real cost.
- Is the price ex-depot or delivered? Never compare one against the other.
- Will I get a weighbridge ticket with each load? If not, you cannot verify the invoice.
- Do you issue a VAT invoice and transport permits? Both matter for your own compliance.
- Can you commit to a monthly tonnage? Spot buying costs more over a year than a standing contract.
Why we quote the way we do
We sell by the tonne over a certified weighbridge, quote ex-depot as standard, name the species, and issue a VAT invoice and transport permits with every consignment. None of that is exceptional — it is simply what a documented supply arrangement should look like, and it is what allows a buyer to check that they got what they paid for.
What we supply
Plantation-grown firewood and biomass logs, harvested across our six estates in the Ratnapura District.
- Sold by Weight — metric tonne (MT)
- Species Acacia mangium, Eucalyptus torelliana
- Standing resource ~98,000 m³ of firewood volume
- Weighing Certified weighbridge, ticket with every load
- Standard basis Ex-depot; haulage quoted on request
- Supply Single loads or standing monthly contracts
- Documentation VAT invoice and timber transport permits