Charcoal for exports are usually shiny black, well carbonized, dried, cleaned and contain no unburnt pieces, stones or which have been sorted out; and graded in three categories namely industrial (20mm–60mm) barbecue (20mm-80mm) and restaurant (20mm-140mm) The essence of producing charcoal yourself is to drastically cut down on procurement costs. The charcoal cartel or middlemen/ processors at Oyo, Iseyin, Eruwa, Ago Are, Shaki, Ijio, Ijiko axis now sell a 32kg bag of charcoal for N600.

If you produce yourself your total cost for the same size of bag falls within the range of N300- N400 per bag. The advantage of dealing with the processor/ middlemen is their capacity to deliver very large orders within a limited space of time.

Having been in the business for a very long time, they produce in line with the international standards and classifications for exports, having acquired the hands-on experience for choosing the requisite trees and wood for burning.

Quite a lot of them are good business people; but a few of their members are so unscrupulous and operate on the fringe of criminality.

You have to keep a hawk’s eye when dealing with them. The physico-chemical parameters of export grade charcoal fall within these limits: Carbon content: (75-80) per cent Moisture content: (10 per cent maximum) Ash content: (3-4) per cent Volatile matter (15 per cent maximum) Nobody expects you to hop into the laboratory to verify each consignment bag-by-bag. Advisedly, you could do only a random sample.

Read more here; http://stunbichinvestment.com/what-to-know-about-charcoal-export-business/