The prices for firewood and wood pellets increased in August by 85.7 percent compared to the same month last year, as the Federal Statistical Office announced on Thursday.

They thus rose more than ten times as much as consumer prices as a whole, which increased by 7.9 percent over the same period.

"The reasons for the above-average price increase for firewood and wood pellets are not only the increased demand but also the increased procurement and transport costs in the wood industry," the statisticians explained.

Especially since the outbreak of war in the Ukraine at the end of February, wood as an energy source has come into focus.

Its use for heating is not without controversy.

The Federal Environment Agency warns that methane and soot, which are harmful to the climate, are produced when they are burned.

Price increase of wood chips even stronger

The upward trend in prices is even clearer when looking at the producer prices for wood used for heating: Wood chips and chips, which are used to heat wood chip heating systems, among other things, were 133.3 percent more expensive in August than a year earlier.

Wood pellets increased in price by 108.2 percent.

For comparison: At the same time, commercial producer prices as a whole rose much more slowly at 45.8 percent.

In many places, the wood is no longer delivered at all.

Many timber entrepreneurs no longer take new orders and only supply their regular customers.

The rising prices meanwhile are attracting more and more professional wood thieves, as the spokesman for the forest owners' association AGDW told the FAZ in August.

In the first quarter, a total of 1.3 million tons of wood in the form of wood flakes and chips were produced for sale.

The majority - exactly 90.9 percent - was made of coniferous wood.

This corresponds to an increase of 4.2 percent compared to the first quarter of 2021, when 1.25 million tons were produced.

The production of wood pellets, on the other hand, only increased by 0.9 percent to a good 750,500 tons.

From March to July of this year, almost 311,000 tons of firewood and wood pellets worth around 79.0 million euros were exported to other countries - in terms of volume, that was 30.3 percent less than in the same period last year.

With a share of 24.4 percent, Italy was the largest buyer of firewood and wood pellets from Germany, followed by Austria (23.4 percent) and Denmark (11.5 percent).

The imports of firewood and wood pellets were somewhat lower: they fell by 1.6 percent to a good 223,800 tons in the period mentioned.