According to Sergey Avdeev, ceo of Katyusha, one of Russia’s largest furniture producers, his company’s new plant will have a capacity of up to 240,000m3 of particleboard a year, while the total volume of investment in its building will exceed 3.3 billion rubles (US$100m). Of this sum, about two billion rubles will be allocated to equipment for the plant, which is expected to be supplied by the German machinery supplier Dieffenbacher.
The establishment of a new plant will allow Katyusha to significantly increase its capacity for particleboard, currently estimated at 140 million m3/year, with the range comprising four different thicknesses.
As part of the project, the company plans to double its raw material base and has already reached agreement with the Bryansk region authorities to almost double its felling area. The project is monitored by the governor of the region, Nikolay Denin.
The new plant will be located in the industrial area, near the already-existing Katyusha factory. The official commissioning of the plant is scheduled for the beginning of 2014, however there is a possibility that it could be launched in the autumn of this year.
The company expects that the production of the new plant will be in high demand in the domestic market, which is currently experiencing a shortage of high quality board. The biggest demand is currently observed in furniture manufacturing, as well as in the construction and DIY sectors.
The current high demand is also reflected by the fact that in 2012, Russian imports of particleboard increased by more than 85% compared with 2011. Most particleboard was imported from Canada, Belarus and Latvia.
According to experts of the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Wood Industry – one of Russia’s leading analyst agencies in the field of timber and wood production and processing – the particleboard shortage in Russian is currently estimated at 2.5 million m3/year.
According to analysts of Furniture Business, Russia’s leading magazine in that field, the most complex situation with particleboard is currently observed in the Siberian region of the country.
Many local furniture companies have traditionally purchased boards in the central region, where most Russian facilities for the production of particleboard are located.
However, in recent times these board manufacturers have started to focus on cooperation with nearby customers, finding no sense in supplying their production to the remote Siberian and Urals regions.
The Ugra-Board plant, recently commissioned in the city of Ugra, with an annual capacity of 150,000m3 of particleboard, has not solved the problem of shortage in the region. Currently its order portfolio stretches many months ahead.
According to Russian furniture producers, there is also currently a shortage of sanded particleboard, which in recent years has virtually disappeared from the market.
At the same time an even more complex situation is currently observed in the Russian market for table tops, where the majority of leading local producers, such as St Petersburg Slotex, Souz and the Samara Arcobaleno company, have been forced to cancel orders due to the lack of base boards.
The current particleboard shortage affects the plans of furniture producers for updating their range and the launch of new collections.
According to Sergei Gunkin, ceo of Mebetal, one of the largest Russian furniture factories, at present most Russian particleboard producers just distribute their production among their already-established customer pool and put practically none of their production out for free sale. One of the major trends in the Russian particleboard market is its seasonality, which is reflected by the fact that the majority of plants are unevenly loaded throughout the year, as reflected in the statistics: The difference in utilisation rate during the peak season and the downturn, in 2012 amounted to 160,000m3, while in 2010 the gap was even greater – 190,000m3.
At the same time, seasonal factors have virtually no effect on the volume of production and sale of Russia’s leading particleboard producers, and in particular the Syktyvkar Plywood Mill, the Pfleiderer plant in the Novgorod region, the Egger plant in Shuya, as well as the Volgodonsky particleboard plant, which were fully utilised, even during the period of decline.
Some analysts also believe that one of the reasons for the current shortage of particleboard in the Russian market is closely related to the inability of furniture producers to properly anticipate their particleboard stocks for future use, which could be explained by the lack of skilled professionals.
According to analysts, the demand for particleboard in Russia will continue to grow during the next several years, partly due to the forthcoming organisation of major sporting events in the country – in particular the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014 and the FIFA World Cup in 2018, which will result in a significant growth in activities in office and hotel furniture manufacture and sale. Preparations for both sporting events will also result in the re-equipment and modernisation of hotels throughout the country; and mass construction of new housing.
