22 | Focus on OSB: Rest of the World
OSB INVESTMENTS CONTINUE
While construction markets in Europe are far from ideal, there is more stability on OSB markets and expectations for growth in 2025 are growing, report Stephen Powney
Above: There are signs of stability on European OSB markets after the wild swings of the Covid years W
ith the general challenging economic backdrop and an uncertain geo- political landscape, the expectation that European OSB production output is likely to have been slightly up in 2023 could be viewed as a sign of stability. In addition, there has been some
movement on price increases in Europe and there are capacity expansion projects on the drawing board and currently being carried out. So, despite the headlines and less than ideal housebuilding rates in many countries, there are some reasons to be looking forward more optimistically, particularly when given the tremendous advantages wood-based panels have in the green building agenda.
Some of the giants of the trade, such as
West Fraser, have intimated that their OSB trading has been better than particleboard and MDF, with prospects for 2024 similar or better than 2023.
And Swiss Krono is ploughing on with
several OSB investments across western Europe as part of its stated plan to raise output at its mills, especially after it withdrew from a Russia project due to the Ukraine conflict. When the European Panel Federation production statistics are released in June at its AGM in Latvia, we will know more about how OSB output has been shaping up. This report deals principally with
market dynamics and production capacity investments and changes, focusing on Europe and the Rest of the World, namely Asia, South America, the MENA region and Oceania.
At the end of 2023, we estimate OSB production capacity for these regions at just under 17 million m3
(2022: 15.8million m3 ).
Our North America Focus on OSB – preceding this report – has already outlined the situation with North America, showing a slew of new OSB mill investments and
WBPI | April/May 2024 |
www.wbpionline.com
reopenings on the continent. installed capacity is estimated at 23,365,000m3
.
.
So total combined world OSB installed capacity we estimate at approximately 40.2 million m3
Capacity expansion in China remains difficult to verify accurately and without a press size for some of these new projects, it’s problematic to give an estimation for their capacity. In addition, the popularity of hybrid panels in China featuring OSB cores and PB faces is a difficult product to categorise, as the OSB part is only a portion of the board and specific output of the different layers is not broken down precisely.
EUROPE
The financial results of leading OSB players give a good window on market dynamics, with West Fraser always one to highlight. Its European division’s EWP segment reported adjusted EBITDA of US$46m
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