About 100 million m3 of timber waste is generated at forest terminals in the Russian Federation, with a harvesting volume of about 500 million m3 of timber. Waste generated at the terminal can be used to produce generator gas, but this requires preliminary preparation of the raw materials. A homogeneous structure of raw materials is recommended for the efficient use of gas generating plants. It can be achieved, for example, by briquetting the waste after it has been crushed. At the same time, the process of briquetting waste at forest terminals will differ from briquetting in the conditions of specialized enterprises. Timber terminals, which are temporary warehouses for timber, usually do not have a centralized electricity connection. The use of internal combustion engines as power plants significantly increases the cost of the woodworking process, since the cost of fuel is quite high, and the efficiency of internal combustion engines is much lower than that of electric motors. In this regard, the search for the most optimal mobile power plants for power supply of forest terminals is a very urgent task. It is preferable to use lighter presses at terminals, since the requirements for density and strength of briquettes for gas-fired plants are lower than for biofuels intended for sale. Known studies are focused mainly on the production of fuel briquettes sold to third-party consumers with a density of more than 1000 kg/m3. The strength is sufficient at a density of briquettes up to 800 kg/m3 for feeding briquettes into gas generating plants. The deformation characteristics of the compacted material will be different in the indicated density range. It requires further experimental studies

Very long distances of export of harvested wood in Siberia and the Far East increasingly pose the problem of optimizing the operation of forest transport, including the coefficient of full-weight load of exported timber. The problem can be solved by the use of the technology of forest terminals (non-permanent forest warehouses), which are created at a small distance from developed forest areas, equipped with mobile woodworking equipment driven by the tractor power take-off shaft. Timber terminals mainly produce semi-finished products, such as timber which is then transported to sawmills and cut into high-quality lumber. The wood waste produced at the forest terminal can be used to produce compressed biofuel, for example, fuel briquettes which can then be used for the energy supply for the forest terminal itself. A mathematical model for analyzing the operation of briquetting crushed wood materials at forest terminals is presented. Keywords: forest terminal, wood waste, briquetting, mathematical model.