We present quantitative analysis of pretreatment for obtaining high conversion and release of sugars from loblolly pine. We use wet explosion (WEx): wet oxidation followed by steam explosion and enzymatic hydrolysis (EH) at high dry matter to solubilize sugars. WEx was conducted at 25% (w/w) solids in presence of oxygen at pressures 6.5-7.2 bar, temperatures 170-175 degrees C and residence time from 20 to 22.5 min. EH of pretreated samples was performed by Cellic (R) Ctec2 (60 mg protein/g cellulose) and Cellic (R) Htec2 enzymes (10% of Ctec2) at 50 degrees C for 72 h. At the optimal WEx condition 96% cellulose and nearly 100% hemicellulose yield were obtained. The final concentrations of monomeric sugars were 152 g/L of glucose, 67 g/L of xylose, and 67 g/L of minor sugars (galactose, arabinose and mannose). Compared to previous work WEx seems to be superior for releasing high concentrations of monomeric sugars. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.