In Chile, forestry and agriculture produce significant amounts of lignocellulosic byproducts, such as forest residues or cereal straw. These biomass resources are currently used to a limited extent for bioenergy, but a significant share is disposed of without utilization, for instance via stubble burning. A major challenge in the recovery of biomass residues is the low density of the material, which results in small truckloads and high transportation costs. Mobile or containerized plants can be located directly at the harvesting site, where they can produce densified bioenergy carriers that can be easily transported. This study presents an economic assessment of mobile plants for the pre-treatment of forest residues in Chile. Two non-stationary configurations, fully mobile and satellite plants, are compared with large, conventional facilities. The results indicate that mobile plants cannot match the economies of scale of the largest commercial plants, but their modular design is advantageous at smaller capacities. In Chile, they would be most suitable for more remote locations and for decentralized utilization concepts.