Focus on particleboard: Part 1 | 11
BRIGHTER SPARKS FOLLOW INITIAL PANDEMIC UNCERTAINTY
A downturn in new line investments in 2019 was followed by the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic and yet there are now some bright sparks of particleboard investments, particularly in eastern Europe and Russia, with one large project also said to be looming in western Europe. Stephen Powney reports on the particleboard industry in Europe and North America, with updates on new projects and investments
A
year on from our last Particleboard Part 1 Survey, it is clearly a different
environment in the global wood-based panels industry from that initial uncertain period following the coronavirus pandemic outbreak.
The first half of 2020 was understandably
affected by the pandemic, causing a pause in investment activity and delays in deliveries of new projects to the global wood-based panels industry. Travel restrictions and worker isolations
provided a different sort of challenge for technology companies serving the panels sector, but as usual they found a way to keep the communications channels open using video conferencing and workers based at their overseas operations. But from the second half of 2020 onwards, more signs of investment activity have flared back to life. The majority of the investment activity within Europe is coming from outside the EU28, with Russia being a main centre of investment focus for new particleboard projects. Our Part 1 Survey listings feature production capacity at mills in Europe and North America as at December 31, 2020. This report also details projects that are either ongoing, planned for the future or mill closures / reduction in capacity. New plants which came on line during 2021 will be added to the main listing tables next year. Plants in Asia and the rest of the world will be covered in our Part 2 survey in the following issue. WBPI’s headline capacity figures for this
survey shows installed capacity as at the end of December 31, 2020 in the whole of
Europe is calculated as 57.34 million m3 compared to 55.8 million m3
in 2019.
For the EU28 we estimate the figure as 39.81 million m3
, up from 38.4 million m3
In North America, we estimate the installed capacity to be 9.7 million m3
in
2019, with European capacity outside the EU28 remaining the same at 17.52 million m3
.
Looking at actual production output figures, the European Panel Federation’s (EPF) annual stats paint an interesting picture of 2020. The top line figure for all wood-based panels was a 2.1% decline in production in EPF countries during 2020, noticeably smaller than the 6.1% reverse in European GDP during the same period. Despite that reverse, the better performance compared to GDP was, the EPF says, due to strong demand for wood-based panels from furniture and construction markets. The EPF cites a strong rebound for
the second half of 2020 after the initial pandemic impacts. Particleboard saw a 4.4% fall in 2020 production to 30 million m3
Table 2 North American average line Capacity '000m3
US Canada 270
2017 2018 2019 2020 247.6 278.7 273.6 297.1 270 362.3 362.3
Mexico 95.8 95.8 99.7 99.7 . US
Canada Mexico
, Table 1 North American capacity
No of mills
19 4 9
32
No of lines
22 6
10 38
December 2020 capacity '000m3
6536 2174 997
9707
, significantly
below the highs achieved 12-plus years ago. The top three largest producers were Germany, Poland and France, with a 1% increase for Poland. Volumes of particleboard going into construction were 29% of all PB production (up from 26% a year ago). Interestingly, recovered wood is used in 44% of European particleboard production (up 1% from the previous year).
EUROPE EU28
A year ago, we mentioned that there was a dearth of new particleboard mill projects in
Europe, which was likely to impact on the future growth of capacity. While that may still be largely true, there is talk of new investments. We have learnt that Saviola Group, Italy’s leading particleboard producer, is examining building a very large new plant, in fact one of the largest in Europe. WBPI understands it has already obtained quotations from machinery suppliers and is believed to be seeking the necessary permissions. The development in question is understood to involve a 60m-long press and design capacity could be up to 1 million m3
.
Such a project is unlikely to be realised until after 2023, so we have added this to Table 6 in the list of projected future capacity changes in Europe and will await further updates. The size of the project would indeed be a
very big development in terms of European particleboard production.
www.wbpionline.com | October/November 2021 | WBPI
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