The article presents the part of PhD studies of the energy wood harvesting technologies in thinning, and its development possibilities. A possibility for energy wood procurement and use in Latvia as a good amount of not used energy, including estimation of how much wood for energy purposes could be available in Latvia is analyzed. Research has been made in two parts using forest stands cutting area in three different ages to get an average volume of energy wood per ha. First part of the research has been done in a 60 years old forest stand cutting area in the way that total chips volume is measured and then recalculated to the thinning area. The average volume from studied forest stand was 20.32 m**3 haE-1. The second part of the study shows that from 30 till 45 years old forest stands cutting area by the measuring possible removal tress, the energy wood volume could be 23.74 – 33.5 m**3 haE-1. Including the slash from this forest stands cutting area the possible volume of wood for energy purposes could be ~ 33 – 47 m**3 haE-1. The calculations also have been done to study available energy wood resources from whole forest stands thinning area. Totally the available energy wood volume in Latvian conditions is 0.85 million m3 yrE-1.

The forests and woods are the main resources in Latvia. It is vital to understand the amount of wood resources that is being extracted from private forests now and in future in order to be able to predict the forest sector development and growth. The study objective was to identify the key factors in the wood resource availability and assess their role in private forests. In October 2009, the study was conducted to appraise the private forest owners the operational results and find out the future plans in connection to wood resource extraction. In the study a random sampling method was applied, where in the respondent selection the State Forest Service database information was used. In the study the respondent interviewing method CATI with computerized telephone interviews was used. In the selection of affecting factors the expert's method was applied. The study showed that only 25.40% of all private forest owners claimed that there was wood resources extraction in forests, but 29.50% of all private forest owners claimed that they were planning to perform the wood resource extraction in 2010. If the timber selling prices increased by more than 10 LVL per m3 in 2010, then 38% of all respondents claimed that they would increase the wood resource extraction in forests. The study data show that 30% of all private forest owners admit that there are growing stands in the forests, but they can’t be harvested, because road infrastructure is poorly developed or there are no roads in the forests.

Forest resources are Latvian national treasure that plays an important role in both ecology and economics of Latvia. Although a number of studies give summaries of statistical data, they have also been used as the basis for this study. Therefore, statistical analysis of the data on acquisition, regeneration, import and export of forest resources in Latvia has been carried out in this study. The aim of the study is to identify the available statistical information on the forest resources in Latvia by ascertaining the amount of available information, types of statistical data used in identifying information on tree felling, annual afforestation, import and export, and to carry out analysis of the acquired data. The statistical information has been obtained from the websites of the State Forest Service and the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat). As a result of the study, we have obtained the dynamics of tree felling and forest regeneration by dominant tree species. The study also reveals the dynamics of import and export of timber resources of the main products. The study was carried out in 2011, in Latvian.

Forest industry consists of two related industries forestry and wood processing. Wood processing industry, which is a direct consumer of timber resources generated by forestry sector is eager to search for an answer about kind and amount of round wood they can count on in long term period. In Latvia for every five years State Forest Service calculates cutting volumes for the state owned forests based on models which do not guarantee safe long term income maximization. Long term cutting volumes and assortments in privately owned forests have not been analyzed very deeply. The aim of the research was to estimate the hypothetic amount of different timber resources available in the territory of Latvia for wood processing industry within next hundred years and look at geographic location of timber resources and woodworking companies. Research results showed that forests in Latvia are not being depleted and current annual cutting volumes could be increased. Geographic observation of primary wood processing companies showed that most of them are located close to large cities or near main roads of Latvia. This location makes easier round wood deliveries to factory and facilitates transportation of produced goods to an end customer. To clarify where and what profile (softwood or hardwood) production volumes should be increased, model of timber resource demand indicator was implemented.

The task of this paper is to create a simulation model of wood resource flow, enabling analysis of the flow of resources to the customer. The model consists of four modelling steps - the study of the system, the creation of conceptual and logical model, as well as data analysis. The model has been developed in UML (Unified Modelling Language) diagrams and the simulation model has been created using software EXTEND Industry. For the simulation of the model the scenario has been created. Based on this scenario, extended scenarios have been developed. Model of basic simulation represents the loading of resources into the transport, transportation, discharging from the transport and the return to the loading point. Using this basic scenario, the extended scenario has been created. This scenario analyzes the flow of wood resources to the customer, taking into account two criterions restricting the flows - assortment to be processed and the distance from the loading place to the customer's location. Extended scenario allows to analyze the load of each sector, as well as to follow each unit existent in the process of simulation. There are attributes of information (type, assortment etc.) added to the unit equivalent to 1m**3 of wood resources. These attributes can provide information about the unit flow within any part of the process.