Comment | 3
WBPI – the voice of the global panel industry T
he subject of future wood raw material availability is one of the big issues facing the wood-based panels manufacturing sector. With global demand for
wood predicted to increase greatly in the coming years – one model is projecting a huge rise by 2040 (see pp42-
43), the wood-based panels industry has to have a strong voice to show stakeholders what a critical industry it is and why it needs good governmental policies to help safeguard its future. At the EPF AGM in Berlin in June, the subject was a major talking point. The myriad of current EU initiatives have various effects on the availability and price of raw material, not all of them helpful to the panel industry’s cause. The Strategic Wood Availability policy paper recently unveiled by EPF charts ‘The growing gap between strategic need and ecological reality’. We cover this paper in this issue – it shows what a complicated subject it is and how lobbying is needed to make sure policymakers know the impacts of their decision-making. A key finding is that projections show a substantial future gap between European wood demand and sustainable domestic supply, even under conservative growth scenarios. Three major policy recommendations in the report are: Prioritising wood for high-value products, reinforcing the cascade principle, and promoting non-wood biomass feedstocks, the latter to reduce pressure from the biomass energy sector on the panel’s industry’s traditional feedstock sources.
❯ FOCUS ON PARTICLEBOARD: PART ONE A detailed look at capacity investments in the PB sector
❯ FOCUS ON NORTH AMERICA A round up of panels stories from North America
❯ FOCUS ON ITALY We look at developments from Italian tech suppliers
❯ PLUS REGULARS Including all the news relevant to our industry, which will be covered in depth and will also appear, as it happens, on our website:
www.wbpionline.com
Linked to this subject is the major news that the first industrial-scale fibreboard recycling line has gone into operation – at Sonae Arauco’s plant in Mangualde, Portugal (see p6). It is a pioneering milestone for the wood-based panels sector. We can safely say that the years of theoretical MDF recycling possibilities have morphed into reality with very real, large-scale installations being introduced.
The new line became operational at the start of Q3 and makes it possible to transform end-of-life MDF panels into raw material for the production of new MDF/HDF fibre panels.
Other significant projects are also progressing – the Unilin project in France and the W Howard project in England for example. It is possible to now see this new material stream become a reality for the wood-based panels sector. If it can be scaled up, it would ease the pressure on raw material demands. Elsewhere in this issue of WBPI we have our MDF
Part 2 report looking at the MDF industry outside of North America and Europe. India, South-east Asia and Iran are among regions seeing some boost in capacities. Our estimates put MDF installed capacity in this ‘Rest of the World’ region at 92,395,000m3 in 2024. Global installed + known future capacity is estimated at 136,033,000m3
. Of course, MDF growth has slowed in several regions, including China.
Stephen Powney
www.wbpionline.com
GROUP EDITOR
www.wbpionline.com | August/September 2025 | WBPI
Next Issue
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53
