Metro-Ply has ordered an MDF line from Siempelkamp to be built at Surat Thani in Thailand.
The plant, Metro-Ply’s sixth MDF line and the company’s fifth in Thailand, will feature a ContiRoll Generation 9i press with a capacity of 450.000m3/year.
The scope of delivery also includes several additional machinery and equipment for a 25% expansion of the existing particleboard lines at the Nonthaburi site.
For Siempelkamp and Metro-Ply, they will be realizing a fifth joint project in total and the second specifically in the MDF production segment.
Metro-Ply, one of the largest wood-based panel producers in Southeast Asia and the largest particleboard producer in the region, will see the scope of supply also including the forming line, board handling, and intermediate storage. The Siempelkamp subsidiary Büttner contributes an energy plant, fibre dryer and an ESP Filter.
Pallmann, the size reduction specialist within the Siempelkamp Group, supplies the complete chipping lines for the MDF production.
Pallmann and Büttner will additionally supply respectively ten knife ring flakers and one drum dryer for the increase of the capacity of the particleboard lines at the Nonthaburi location by 220,000m3/year, thus further strengthening Metro-Ply’s market position.
Surat Thani has the highest proportion of rubberwood plantations in Thailand and this raw material will be used for production.
The start of assembly of the new MDF Line is planned towards the end of 3rd quarter of 2025.
The first MDF line order that Metro-Ply placed with Siempelkamp was at the end of October 2019, which went into operation in April 2021 at the Kanchanburi location.
With this latest new MDF Line, Metro now operates a total of six locations: Nonthaburi, Prachinburi, Surat Thani, Kanchanaburi, Rayong, in Thailand, and Wangaratta, in Australia.
