Investment in new MDF capacity continues in various regions of the world.
Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, South Africa, Thailand, and Vietnam have each either announced or are developing new projects.
Following on from the Focus on MDF Part 1 (Europe and North America), we now focus on the existing MDF mills in the rest of the world as at the end of 2022 and on those under construction in 2023 or planned for 2024 and beyond.
After several updates and corrections in data from across the globe, we now show an increase in installed capacity in 2022 to 88,107,000m3, while further investments identified in this region for 2023/24 and beyond, bring the total up to 94,749,000m3.
So, for 2023/24 and beyond, when this figure is added to the European future capacity of 32,305,000m3 and the North American future capacity figures (including Mexico) of 7,277,000m3 for the same period, we see future global MDF capacity growing to 134,331,000m3.
CHINA AND NORTH-EAST ASIA
Average annual growth over the past five years has been typically strong in this region, except for Japan, where GDP growth declined, but subsequently has been recovering more strongly with GDP forecast to be 1.8% in 2023.
In 2022, China reported GDP growth of around 4.4% and has anticipated 5.6% in 2023. Economic projections are still forecasting strong growth into the future from these nations, which ultimately will drive MDF consumption higher.
China is still forecast to produce 85% of the furniture in North Asia by 2023/24 and the relatively strong growth in the region will influence not only the aggregate consumption of all wood panels, but also the proportion of use by each sector.
Of the annual production of furniture in China approximately 32% is exported to a wide range of countries, with the largest volumes still destined for the US, Japan, and Europe, while the domestic market continues to grow year-on-year. The drive by the authorities to move industries to inner cities also led to an exodus of some Taiwanese furniture factories from China, relocating to Vietnam.
China’s MDF production capacity has grown rapidly in the last decade and opinions about the volume of installed capacity vary greatly. Different sources estimate MDF capacity in China being anywhere between 47 million m3 to 69 million m3, the former being linked to closures of old plants.
Our estimates for MDF in China are based on known capacity for listed plants, plus estimates and new investment news, with the caveat that there are undoubtedly additional small plants with unknown capacity.
Whereas consumption has previously increased so strongly, forecasts are for consumption to increase at an average annual rate of just 1% in the region over the two years out to 2023/24, as China shifts to a focus on more domestic growth in consumption, possibly at the expense of some exports, such as furniture.
Also, real commercial activity in the Chinese MDF industry has continued to slow as the government tries to rein in the country’s dramatic economic growth of recent years.
Looking ahead, the use of rice straw for MDF production is an evolution that is starting to be noticed around the world. We have added the latest MDF investment decision by Wanhua Ecoboard Co Ltd based on this raw material source, in partnership with Dieffenbacher.
The first Wanhua Ecoboard MDF line, which will be installed in Yiyang, Jiangxi Province will have a designed annual capacity of about 210,000m³ using a CPS+ in dimensions of 9ft x 32.4m and is to run completely on straw.
A plant added to the main listing is existing Chinese MDF producer Guangxi Lelin Forestry Development Co’s new MDF plant from Dieffenbacher. With the construction of an 80m-long CPS+, this one sets a world record for the longest continuous press used to produce wood-based panels and the line has a design capacity of 630,000m3.
Plant construction started in the second quarter of 2021 in the southern Chinese city of Chongzuo, not far from the Vietnamese border. It went online in 2022.
A high-speed THDF plant in Nanning that produces up to 1mm thin boards was previously ordered by Guangxi Lelin from Dieffenbacher in June 2018 and commissioned in October 2019.
Two other new future MDF investments in China are on the cards – Huashi Chaoyang Tech with 97,000m3 and Guangxi Guoxu Dongteng Wood-based panel Co Ltd in Wuzhou, Guangxi Province, with a planned capacity of 350,000m3.
Our total listing for Chinese installed capacity at the end of 2022 is now 57,698,000m3. Note, this is not the same as production output.
Japanese MDF installed capacity remains at 635,000m3 with 95% of material produced mainly in the form of raw panels. There are no plans known to substantially increase domestic MDF capacity and the supply of imported MDF from New Zealand continues, with all three MDF mills in that country under Japanese ownership.
SOUTH-EAST ASIA
Economies in South-east Asia are still set to be among the world’s fastest growing when looking out to 2023/24 and beyond. Six countries – India, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam – are expected to continue to have positive GDP growth rates.
In this part of Asia, the MDF market had been generally doing well, driven by continuing increasing demand. The pandemic-induced disruptions, exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine war since February 2022 have caused high production costs and a shortage of raw materials.
The high demand eased, with some easing of prices.
Thailand is also facing a double whammy. Not only had it to grapple with the high production cost due to a shortage of raw materials, it has also to contend with a low price its main importing countries such as Vietnam can afford, given that the higher shipping cost has itself precluded it until recently from being able to export to markets further afield. Many now run their production at subnormal capacity just to hold prices stable.
Likewise in Malaysia and Indonesia, manufacturers have been exporting far less due to the severe shortage of shipping containers. Their outputs are mostly sold locally, with some export going to Middle East, where shipment can be sent via breakbulk. The outlook remains complex with many of the supply chain problems not about to go away anytime soon.
In Vietnam, with 2,220,000m3 of MDF capacity confirmed as installed, we can see FSC Vietnam JSC of Kim Tin Group running its expanded 400,000m3 operation at the VND2.3trn (US$98.7m) MDF plant in the Nam Dong Phu Industrial Zone, in the southern province of Binh Phuoc’s Dong Phu District. The operation of the plant will contribute to modernisation in the province.
Then in December 2021 came the announcement of a further US£350m investment by the Kim Tin Group which signed contracts for two new MDF production lines (460,000m3 and 400,000m3) in Binh Phuoc and Dong Nai provinces. Headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, the Vietnamese Kim Tin Group commissioned Dieffenbacher to supply the two MDF plants, for its sites in Chon Thanh, Binh Phuoc province and Dau Giay, Dong Nai province.
Chairman of the Board Nguyen Tien Hai said the company liked to “think big” and therefore decided to build two production lines at the same time.
Kim Tin Group planned to produce the first board on its new MDF line in Chon Thanh in May 2023, with start-up of the plant in Dau Giay expected to follow in early 2024. By 2025, Kim Tin Group intends to build additional plants in central and northern Vietnam.
Also in Vietnam, Mekong Wood MDF JSC of Cam Khe in Phu Tho province, currently active in trading wood-based panels, plans to start producing MDF.
For this purpose, the company has ordered a complete plant from Siempelkamp. The 8ft x 47.1m ContiRoll with a NEO press infeed will be geared to processing acacia wood. Use of other woods, such as eucalyptus, is planned as well.
Once up and running the plant is to have an annual output of more than 400,000m³. The main customers are likely to be buyers in the furniture industry. Siempelkamp says the range of thickness is 3.5-32mm, but a large proportion of the output will comprise panels with a thickness of 15-17mm.
To note in Vietnam, Siempelkamp had first received an order for a forming and pressing line for processing acacia wood from Dongwha Holdings Group of South Korea in October 2019. The line – the same dimensions as the one for Mekong Wood above – was put into operation in 2021 with an estimated 300,000m3 capacity.
In Thailand, with 4,933,000m3 of MDF capacity installed, significant new MDF investments have continued, with new plants in the past two years including Siam Riso’s 200,000m3 capacity facility which started production in November 2021. Another was Metro MDF, which installed a new forming and press line to replace the original Küsters forming and press line for its MDF plant at the Kanchanburi site. This uprated MDF facility now fully operational with a capacity of 290,000m3 and is equipped with a thinand lightboard package.
No new investment plans have been seen in Malaysia for some time and our latest MDF mill listing shows the country’s substantial capacity at 1,505,000m3. Apart from domestic sales and Singapore, the Middle East market has been a consistently growing market in recent years,
A recent statement from Johor Baru, Evergreen Fibreboard Bhd (EFB) reported that it wants to strengthen its position as one of Asia’s largest MDF manufacturers in the region and to be amongst the top 10 in the world, based on production volumes.
As previously reported, modified wood products innovator Accsys Technologies continues exploring opportunities for new manufacturing plants outside Europe. It announced that its subsidiary, Tricoya Technologies Ltd (TTL), had now entered into an agreement with PETRONAS Chemicals Group Berhad (“PCG”) to evaluate the feasibility of jointly funding, designing, building, and operating an integrated acetic anhydride and Tricoya wood elements production plant (the “Plant”) in Malaysia.
It is envisaged that Tricoya wood elements produced at the Plant would use acetic acid from PCG’s existing joint venture in Malaysia. The Plant would then supply the MDF and wood panel industry within South-east Asia, under licence, as the key raw material for the formation of Tricoya modified wood fibre panels for the use in the construction industry in the region. The evaluation is continuing.
For Indonesia, alongside the traditional high-volume plywood production, we now see MDF to be a substantial product produced in this country, with 1,277,500m3 capacity installed over 10 lines.
A new MDF investment by PT Indonesia for an additional 208,000m3 capacity is now progressing and is under construction with supervisors from equipment suppliers Yalian, China on the site.
In South Korea, with 2,113,000m3 of MDF production capacity installed, raw material availability remains a key issue. With the introduction of the Recycled Energy Policy, the amount of wood ‘waste’ used for energy has increased. So, consequently Korean panel manufacturers seek a new policy now to prioritise the cascade and efficient use of wood for materials first. Thailand, Vietnam, Brazil and China are the major sources of imported MDF in this country.
Summarising, this region has experienced supply shocks following the pandemic causing output to be at times at a suboptimal level. El Nina which brought extremely wet weather since the middle of 2020/21 has resulted in logging activities being drastically scaled down, thus causing shortages of wood raw materials.
Added to this, advanced technology has enabled the life span of old rubber trees to be prolonged, so that more latex can be extracted. And, more logs are licensed for export, causing shutdown to downstream wood processing plants, which in turn deprive MDF plant of their sources of wood materials.
INDIA AND PAKISTAN
In India we have seen MDF capacity grow substantially to 1,935,000m3 in 2022. The plywood manufacturer Greenply Industries Ltd’s new MDF line (Greenpanel) in Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh, at 56m-long with its Dieffenbacher CPS at the core of the plant, is currently the longest continuous press in operation in Asia.
Greenply (Tinsukia, Assam) announced plans to eliminate existing bottlenecks at its two MDF locations in Routhu Suramala (Andhra Pradesh) and Pantnagar (Uttarakhand). This is meant to increase total capacity of the two plants by 20%, from previously 540,000m³/year to 650,000m³/ year.
In its current investment planning, the company estimated INR250m for this expansion, which is expected to be completed in the third quarter of the financial year.
Production volume rose by 40% compared to the preceding year to 138,080m³ (98,612m³), MDF sales increased by 54.4% to 139,490m³ (90,355m³). In addition to price increases, a favourable product mix also led to an increase in average sales prices.
Greenply Industries Ltd acquired all shares in Baahu Panels Pvt Ltd, a company based in Kolkata, West Bengal in 2022.
Baahu Panels had developed plans to build an MDF mill in Sherpura in the western Indian state of Gujarat in recent months.
Greenply intended to bring the greenfield project to fruition by the end of its 2022/2023 financial year (March 31). With a designed annual capacity of 240,000m³, the mill is to entail an investment of INR5.480bn or around US$73.8m.
As India’s largest MDF manufacturer, Greenpanel has now ordered its third MDF plant from Dieffenbacher. The new thin-board line based on Dieffenbacher’s smart plant concept CEBRO will be added in Routhu Suramala, Andhra Pradesh with a capacity of 230,000m3.
“Over the last two years, we have increased our MDF production capacity from 500,000 to 660,000m³, but the demand for our premium-quality boards produced with Dieffenbacher technology is still growing significantly,” said Shobhan Mittal, managing director, and CEO of Greenpanel.
The new CEBRO line, scheduled to go into operation in summer 2024, will include a fibre dryer, air grader, forming station and forming line, a CPS+ continuous press system including Press Emission Control System, the raw board handling system, and the new Wireless STS raw board storage system.
The Indian laminate and wood-based panel manufacturer Rushil Décor Ltd of Ahemdabad in Gujarat, India, commissioned Siempelkamp as the single-source supplier of a new 240,000m3 MDF plant for it in India. This plant is now operational and is added to the main listing.
With the new plant in Vishakapatnam also in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, the manufacturer will produce MDF from plantation eucalyptus and from over mature mango trees. To meet local market needs, Rushil Décor with this investment, will significantly expand its original production capacities above its current and original 90,000m3 MDF capacity at Chikmagalur, based within the Indian state of Karnataka.
The scope of work included an 8ft x 28.8m ContiRoll press from Siempelkamp. We understand from a company statement that Rushil Décor wants to enter the MDF export business as well through the facility located on the Gulf of Bengal, where thin MDF can also be produced in future.
Century Plyboards (CenturyPly) of Kolkata in West Bengal has now commenced work on construction of its second MDF production line at Gopavaram, Andhra Pradesh with an annual capacity planned of 314,000m3. This was immediately after the decision to also expand capacities at the MDF plant in Hoshiarpur (Punjab) with 198,000m3 (announced in February 2021), which is now operational and moved to the main listing. In its current investment planning, the company has estimated a total of INR2.2bn, equivalent to US$30m, for the expansion projects.
CenturyPly’s Gopavaram line is the second MDF works planned in southern India. In contrast to the original plans, the greenfield project also includes creating capacity for producing laminates, plywood, and particleboard.
CenturyPly had originally planned a pure MDF works with a capacity of 231,000m³ per year, which was to be put into operation by the first quarter of the business year 2023/2024 (March 31). The company is meanwhile assuming production will commence in the second half of the business year. Managing director and CEO Sanjay Agarwal says the plant is now geared up to a capacity of 314,000m3 a year, and the plant is being supplied by the Siempelkamp Group.
Finally, there is a new investment to add to our future capacity listing for India and this is by Metro Decorative Private Ltd (a member of the Indian Green building counsel) based in Haryana, India for a new MDF plant supplied by Yalian of China, with a design capacity of 198,000m3.
Installed MDF capacity in Pakistan remains at 342,000m3 with four manufacturers.
The ZRK Industries (Pvt) Ltd investment in its MDF mill with a continuous line in Mardan, we understand is running well. The ZRK group is the largest wood-based panel industry in Pakistan, producing both MDF and particleboard. Having state-of-theart plants from Europe and China, it has a distributor’s network throughout Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia.
Its Wood Processing Division is vertically integrated, and the group consists of Pakistan’s largest, new, fully automated particleboard plant, paper lamination and impregnation lines and now Pakistan’s largest new MDF plant.
Pakistan currently imports MDF from a variety of countries such as Thailand, Vietnam and China and is a major export market for MDF produced in Sri Lanka.
SOUTH AMERICA
South America continues to have an underlying demand of well over one million housing units annually which in turn, is good for MDF consumption. But elevated prices for wood raw materials, currency crises, political and economic crises as well, mean the market dynamics are often challenging.
Regarding the wood supply, in some regions of Brazil, the prices have more than doubled year-on-year and with the cellulose sector also growing, the pressure on wood availability and prices is an important issue.
Players who own their own pine/ eucalyptus forests in order to supply the majority of their operations like Dexco (formally Duratex) have the inflation pressure attenuated, but players who have a high dependency of third-party wood suppliers, may have some risk in maintaining production and full-scale operations.
In the last year demand for MDF products has been seen to be less strong across the continent.
For the first time in a few years freight rates have become a hot topic, as containers prices have fallen back, most especially when shipping out from Brazil. International buyers have found alternative freight options such as roll-on/roll-off or break-bulk shipping.
Demand in Brazil is softer, so the surplus of Brazilian MDF is being exported worldwide, taking advantage of these better freight rates and lower raw materials costs. Main exporters are Dexco, Berneck and Guararapes, but also other smaller players like Greenplac. Brazilian MDF can be seen all across EMEA, rest of the Americas, Africa, the Far East and so on.
South American buyers are enjoying price drops for the first time in three years, and they are using this, together with the need of the producers to keep their lines running, to their advantage.
Overall, it seems that the competition between Kronospan and Egger seen elsewhere has found a new arena: Latin America. Kronospan through its Spanish subsidiary and Egger through its Argentinian and US companies.
And on the Pacific side of Latin America, Chinese boards can also be found again now that freight rates came back to a more normal level.
It is quite difficult to predict how demand will evolve in the coming months, as several elements will have impact on demand: economy evolution after the pandemic and how it affects disposable income, and political unrest in several Latin American countries.
Looking at Brazil, the large Berneck MDF/ HDF mill in Lages, Santa Catarina became operational in Q4 2021 and the first MDF panels were made before the end of that year. It will ultimately manufacture 1,665m³ of MDF daily and we understand is running well.
This really remains a continent of change, of development, of expansion. Amazingly, virtually no MDF was produced in Brazil back in 1998 but it now has the largest production capacity as a country in South America. Key producers in the region have included Masisa, Arauco, Duratex, Fibraplac, Floraplac, Eucatex and Berneck over these years.
Dexco’s (formally Duratex) future MDF project of 350,000m3 at Alagoas is still on ‘stand-by’ for now due to current market conditions and so remains in our future project listing.
As reported last year, Asperbras (producing now under the MDF brand name GreenPlac) is an industrial and agro business group, located in Água Clara, Mato Grosso do Sul state – a complete newcomer to panel production, but serious. The company is using its eucalyptus plantations to feed its 250,000m3 Siempelkamp ContiRoll line and this line was up and running back in 2018. According to Greenplac, the facility can now produce approximately 300,000m³ annually. A new short-cycle press was also installed during the last year, increasing annual laminating capacities by more than 70,000m³.
The group has plans to add a second line at a cost of US$24m – with a capacity of about 230,000m3 when its forest base grows more, making a potential combined capacity of 460,000m3. The project remains in our future capacity listing.
Brazilian Guararapes also placed orders for a new and additional MDF line. This third MDF production line is expected to almost double output of the Caçador works. Like the second plant delivered in 2015, Siempelkamp will be supplying all the main components from the debarker through to the 9ft x 48.7m ContiRoll Generation 9 press and the packaging section.
Siempelkamp says the plant is designed for an annual capacity of around 520,000m³ per year, or 1,500m³ per day. The start-up due in mid-2023 will boost Guararapes’ total MDF capacity by 90% to around 1.1 million m³. Guararapes says it believes this will give it the biggest combined MDF facility in South America.
Moving on, Indústria de Compensados Sudati Ltda of Palmas wants to further enlarge its MDF capacity. Capacity planned is suggested at 360,000m3.
These investment projects now envisaged by Guararapes and Sudati will significantly accelerate the expansion of Brazilian MDF/ HDF capacity, which had been proceeding at a somewhat subdued pace in the past two to three years.
Along with increasing their raw board capacity, several Brazilian MDF/HDF manufacturers are also set to invest in coating operations. Wemhöner had previously delivered a short cycle press to Berneck’s facility in Curitibanos in April 2020 under the terms of an older contract. Assembly work has now restarted after being delayed by the pandemic.
Wemhöner has received more orders from the Brazilian MDF/HDF industry via Inserco Industrie Service GmbH, headquartered in Viersen, Germany, over the past few months. Besides Guararapes and Sudati, Floraplac Industrial MDF Ltda, based in Paragominas, Pará, has also ordered a short-cycle press.
With all these great projects in mind it is important to note that Brazil is the world’s fifth largest country by area with a currently installed MDF capacity of 7,552,000m3. Its forest sector now comes under the common umbrella of IBA, the Association for the Brazilian Tree Industry. We would particularly like to thank IBA for its help in updating this part of our report.
In Paraguay, the modest project to build Paraguay’s first MDF plant, a 55,000m3 unit in Coronel Oviedo (department of Caaguazú), was given the green light by the Industry and Commerce Ministry there. It was planned by Agroindustria del Paraguay SA as its first venture in panel manufacturing and it took advantage of fiscal incentive legislation for national and foreign investors to assist its investment of US$6.7m in imported machinery. The mill, which we understand is running well, is in the main listing. Paraguay’s domestic demand for MDF is also partially satisfied by MDF imports from Brazil and from China.
In Chile, installed capacity remains at 1,155,000m3 and there is no new capacity expansion on MDF seen at present. Arauco (Chile) has continued to expand its panel products global reach (including MDF).
Production of MDF also continues in individual mills and facilities in Columbia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela and we have no new or specific information to report at this time.
Consumption of MDF in South America overall (post Covid-19) is projected to increase continually out to 2023/24/25 and most of this will be in Brazil, which will be consuming more than 70% of all MDF in South America by then. Consumption will also expand over time in other countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, and other non-producing South American countries, providing strong export demand regionally within the continent, as well as overseas internationally, particularly to the US.
REST OF THE WORLD
Australia has remained one of the strongest performing advanced economies in the world over the past decade. Economic production has shifted from a dominant mining and resource sector to a greater emphasis on the production of goods and services. While both housing and non-residential construction have been booming over the past decade, a moderation in residential construction activity has been seen.
MDF exports from Australia and imports to Australia averaged less than 100,000m3 annually over the last six years to 2022. MDF is imported mainly from China, Germany, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Vietnam. The industry is highly concentrated with only three producers as per our listing and has operated at near full capacity over the past five years.
A recent line to be added was at Borg Manufacturing Pty Ltd, Australia’s leading producer of melamine coated boards. A new MDF forming and press line from Siempelkamp became operational during the second half of 2022, so this facility has been added to the main listing. It has a ContiRoll in 8ft x 18.8m format with lightboard package and annual capacity 100,000m3.
In New Zealand, the MDF producers have had an installed name plate capacity for MDF of 720,000m3 but based on the current product mix and efficiencies, are apparently now producing in the region of 770,000m3 annually.
The economy in New Zealand, which is highly trade-exposed and export dependent, especially in the forest products sector, continues to respond to the global financial and economic challenges with vigour. Clearly markets softened in the later stages of 2022 as reduced demand, due to increasing interest rates and so on took its toll in the construction and remodelling sectors.
The building and construction cycle is still forecast to shift to a strong growth path in New Zealand (albeit from a small base) over the next two years.
Over and above all this, the biggest news recently from New Zealand, in November 2022 is that Daiken has shut down its original (Customwood) MDF line in Rangiora, the largest town and seat of the Waimakariri District, in Canterbury.
The decision to retire the line, which has been in production since the factory opened in 1975, follows Daiken announcing a restructure in May.
A second line will continue to operate, in conjunction with Daiken’s sister plant in Southland.
Moving on to North Africa, both Algeria and Egypt have joined the nations of MDF producers in recent times. The Algerian family-owned company, Bigstar Sarl via its subsidiary Panneaux d’Algérie entrusted Dieffenbacher with their order for the delivery of a complete system for producing MDF panels at its site in El Tarf in the far north-east of the country. This first continuous press operating in North Africa has been operational since 2021, with the first commercial boards produced in March 2022.
In Egypt, we also recorded previously the investment decision by Nile Wood SAE to add an MDF facility. Egyptian Kuwaiti Holding (EKH) said its 99.99%-owned subsidiary, would start to establish a factory to produce MDF in two phases with a total estimated investment cost of LE2bn.
The greenfield site development in Sadat City, Egypt will be able to make just under 200,000m³ per year, which will climb to around 400,000m³ per year when a second production line is added later. Nile Wood initially only wanted to produce raw board after starting up the first line during the fourth quarter of 2022 (now added to the main listing). The later capacity expansion project will also entail investments in downstream processing capacities. Nile Wood is using sesbania wood from its own plantations as the raw material for its MDF line.
Meanwhile, Homann Holzwerkstoffe GmbH, based in Munich, bought a stake in Nile Wood, with its joint venture agreement with EKH. Under the terms of this deal, Homann Holzwerkstoffe bought a qualified minority interest in the holding company Global MDF Industries BV, headquartered in Amsterdam, which in turn controls Nile Wood.
Also in Egypt, Wood Technology Co (WOTECH) placed a milestone project order in February 2020 from Siempelkamp. Representatives of both companies signed the contract for an MDF plant with an annual production capacity of 205,000m³ and which will process rice straw as the raw material.
With this plant, WOTECH is positioning itself in the areas of environmental protection and resource efficiency, because the value-added use of rice straw opens new perspectives for a raw material that would otherwise be burned as a waste product. The concept is also attractive for countries such as Egypt, which do not have sufficient wood resources for industrial use.
WOTECH is the second customer after CalAg, LLC, California, to ask Siempelkamp for an MDF plant based on rice straw at Idku, near Alexandria. The contract value for the new project marks the third-largest single order ever placed with Siempelkamp.
The assembly process started in January, 2022. The new plant with its annual production capacity of 205,000m3 is considered an important step in Egypt’s government initiative to use rice straw in a value-adding, CO2-reducing and sustainable way.
The forming and press line is supplied with an 8ft x 48.7m ContiRoll, while board produced on the line will cover 3-40mm thickness. The panels produced will primarily go into the furniture industry in the local or Middle East region. Start-up was scheduled for 2023.
In South Africa, private sector housing is still projected to grow annually and certainly the demand for furniture and wood-based panel products has strengthened there considerably over the past decade.
Only one MDF mill has been under expansive construction in South Africa the last year, and this is by the wood-based panel manufacturer PG Bison, which has an existing MDF facility at Boksburg in Gauteng Province, with a current installed capacity of 132,000m3 out of a total South African capacity of 207,000m3.
In December 2020 PG Bison unveiled a ZAR2bn (equalling roughly €110m) programme of investments. Owned by the South African conglomerate KAP Industrial Holdings PG Bison said that the investments involved installing a new front end, screens, gluing, blending and dryer at its particleboard mill in Mkondo (Piet Retief), Mpumalanga, that had already been modernised in several phases in the past few years and also the installation of a new MDF line with a capacity of 275,000m3 at the Piet Retief site.
Downstream processing capacity will also be increased again following the completion of the two projects. Additional investments to the tune of around ZAR400m are envisaged for the projects between now and 2025, which include installing a seventh short cycle press and a second hot coating line.
Siempelkamp supplied the main components of the MDF/HDF plant planned for its eMkhondo (Piet Retief) location. The press line is a 6ft x 38.7m ContiRoll.
According to PG Bison, the new plant will produce MDF, light MDF and HDF in thicknesses between 3-35mm, reaching a capacity of around 780m³/day. Total capacity for MDF/HDF sold by PG Bison under the name SupaWood will increase from currently 420m³ to 1,200m³/day.
Despite the sharp declines in the few years following the previous global economic crisis, MDF consumption in South Africa increased by 5% annually over the past five years. The relatively strong growth in production and consumption of furniture in the past decade, as well as projections for strong growth to 2022/23/24, suggest that it will be a key sector continually driving growth in the consumption of MDF and particleboard.
IRAN
We have now been able to completely update our main listing which shows Iran’s MDF name plate production capacity up to an impressive 3,220,000m3. In recent times the Ministry of Industries, Mining & Trade in Iran banned the exports of timber, chipboards and MDF. The measure was said to be aimed at regulating the domestic market, as furniture producers and business in the field, had recently complained of scarcity and high prices of raw materials used in their trades.
There has been considerable change in the MDF manufacturers evolution in Iran during the last six years. A lot of new companies came into the market with both new and second-hand lines installed. The previous details about Iranian MDF industries published in WBPI has been updated this year with the help of local specialists.
Main list changes and additions feature the MDF facilities of the Arian Takhteh 2 facility with 250,000m3 at Rasht, Gilan producing first boards during 2021 and Caspian at Salmanshahr, Mazandaran with 105,000m3 of MDF also starting up in 2021. We understand the Arian Chemie 250,000m3 line at Amir Abad Seaport, Mazandaran, belonging to the holdings of Arian Saeed is running well.
Furthermore, there are also two new investments in Iran for MDF lines now listed in our future capacity table which are under construction – the Arta Industrial Group 2 at Ardebil with 300,000m3, and Melamin Sazeh 2 at Azarshahr, Tabriz with 500,000m3. Pakchoub at Hudssainabad, Khuzestan with 120,000m3 has started production and is now in the main listing. In Iran, MDF still has further potential for more to be produced locally as nearly 800,000m3 was imported only in the last years, mainly from Turkey and China.
HOW THE LISTING WAS COMPILED
The WBPI listings published in 2021 were reviewed and modifications made, using other published sources and data received directly from the mills and specific industry experts. Published information was reviewed for news of capacity changes. These sources include relevant trade magazines, association reports, press releases and equipment suppliers’ reference lists.
The mills own reported capacities are used wherever possible because this is the basis upon which they can make their estimates of future capacity and production changes. Where this information is not available, published sources are used, usually on a basis of 330 operating days per year.
Conversion to ft2 to m3/year is made with 1,000ft2 to m3/year is made with 1,000ft2 equal to 1.77m3.
In September 2011, Geoff Rhodes established GRA as a specialist forest products and international trade consultancy, providing independent in-depth assessment of markets and market potential for wood-based panel products. Geoff is well known for his pioneering work over many years driving the introduction and huge expansion in the use of MDF in the UK and international markets. He is a former President of the Timber Trade Federation (TTF), the European Association of MDF Manufacturers (EMB), the Fibre Building Board Federation (FIDOR) & a former Board Member of the European Panel Federation (EPF). He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining and since 2016, he has been President of the Institute of Carpenters (IOC). In 2017 he was the recipient of the TTJ’s Lifetime Achievement Award for services to the timber industry. geoffrhodes.associates@gmail.com
