At least two potential projects, each proposing the construction of a new MDF production line away from the sector’s southeastern manufacturing heartland, still appear to be making slow progress towards execution.
The more likely of these actually to be realised is a plan by Floraplac MDF, Brazil’s northernmost fibreboard producer, to install a second MDF line at its 200,000m3/year plant in Paragominas in the central northern state of Pará.
Prompted by growing demand from the furniture sector in Brazil’s developing northeast region, Floraplac MDF, which currently makes standard MDF on a Chinese-built 12-daylight press line, aims to add a thin fibreboard line.
Final decisions on which technology to choose, and whether it should buy from China or Germany, is expected by the turn of the year. Its first line was supplied by Shanghai Wood Based Panel Machinery Co (SWPM), part of Germany’s Dieffenbacher group.
Floraplac is said to have held preliminary discussions with at least one of the big German machinery suppliers, Siempelkamp, and a Floraplac director was due to meet with potential suppliers in China earlier this year (2012).
Recent news reports in Brazil suggest that Floraplac has already opted to buy a continuous production line, as it is aiming to almost triple its effective capacity to around 540,000m3/year. It aims to launch the second line by 2014.
The small Pará producer, which uses an unusual fibre mix of eucalyptus with a planted tropical hardwood, paricá, in making its board, has invested heavily in three Omeco melamine laminating lines to win a significant share of the finished MDF market in the northeast.
It recently exhibited at this year’s Brazilian ‘Formóbile’ furniture industry trade show where the firm unveiled a further 15 wood grain laminate panel designs, on top of its existing portfolio of solid colour and wood grain patterns.
Floraplac, part of the Pará forestry-tosolid wood flooring company Grupo Concrem of Dom Eliseu, continues to produce plywood made with wood taken from its 30,000ha of planted paricá forest.
Floraplac is now a member of Brazil’s wood panel producers association, ABIPA, and appears a determined player in what has been in recent months a highly competitive marketplace.
The other capacity proposal has come from a consortium of Brazilian entrepreneurs with links to the furniture industry in the eastern coastal state of Espirito Santo. They plan to build an MDF plant in the north of the state.
This facility, destined for the town of Pinheiros, is part of a larger cooperative scheme to include a furniture manufacturing and logistics park in the nearby district of Pedro Canário. The investors expect the new park will attract more forest products sector companies to the region.
The Espirito Santo consortium, backed by 48 entrepreneurs, formed a company, Placas do Brasil SA, to establish the plant. It will have an initial MDF output of about 15,000m3/month, of which about 12,000m3/month would go to the existing state furniture making zone of Linhares. The mill was scheduled to start up by January 2015.
Investors linked with state wood and furniture sector body SINDIMOL, have been discussing a plan to manufacture panels locally for two years. The Linhares furniture hub has suffered costs 20% higher for years as they have had to ship board from suppliers further south.
They aimed to have project funding in place by September (2012) and to secure an environmental go ahead by December, when they also planned to select batch- or continuous-press production technology; and whether a German or a Chinese supplier.
Raw material for the 180,000m3/year plant is to be drawn from surrounding eucalyptus plantations located in several communities within an 80km radius of the site.
A third proposal on a possible panel plant by furniture manufacturers at the forest products sector centre of Ubá, in Minas Gerais state, is still at an early discussion stage, while the fast-recovering furniture industry is planning a new US$40m factory zone in next door Bahia state.
