France’s Carrefour International du Bois (CIB) has kept up its record of expanding and evolving each time it comes around. Exhibitors and visitors at the three-day May event in Nantes said it also further cemented its status as Europe’s leading alltimber trade show.
According to the organisers, visitor numbers were down around 500 from 2022’s record 14,000. But exhibitors attributed the bumper total two years ago to the post- Covid bounce that boosted the timber market globally. They also pointed out that this year’s attendance was over 17% up on the previous all-time high in 2018 (the 2020 show was cancelled due to the pandemic).
There were 637 exhibitors at the CIB (against 607 in 2022), with 39% from outside France, representing 40 countries. There was a marked increase in visitor attendance from abroad too, also hitting 39% of the total, and drawn from nearly 100 countries.
The show also occupied more space this year at Nantes’ Beaujoire fair complex, with the 28% area increase outstripping the rise in stand numbers thanks to the use of hall XXL for the first time.
Another change was the new compartmentalisation of the event, with the different halls dedicated to flooring, wood-based panels, timber building and construction services, and the XXL hall grouping sawmills, timber trade and forestry. The consensus was that this made the event easier to navigate.
While acknowledging their market perceptions were yet to be underpinned with categoric stats, attendees also felt show attendance indicated the mood of the timber sector was on the turn, after a challenging 2023/early 2024. The feeling was that confidence is “gently improving” due to inflation decreasing (and the EU area rate was down to 2.6% in May from a 2022 peak of over 10%) and the prospect of lower interest rates, with the European Central Bank cutting them for the first time in five years in June to 3.75%.
The level of product development at the show, plus news highlighted by many companies of capital investment and corporate development projects, also indicated a more positive perspective.
Multi-faceted French softwood sawmill and timber product manufacturer Piveteaubois was promoting a number of new developments. These included Argento, a new glue laminated range of Douglas fir cladding profiles, supplied as 19mm x 145mm x 4m long. It is in a pre-weathered grey look and comes as a vertical (Vigo) and horizontal (Vezzo) install. It’s distributed in the UK by the National Timber Group.
The company also focused on latest advances in its fast-evolving engineered wood operation. This included its low carbon Pivolta pressure-treated, Use Class 3 Douglas fir glulam car park solar panel canopy kits.
“A new regulation in France requires owners of all external car parks over 1,500m2 to install solar canopies to cover at least half their area,” explained Piveteaubois UK and Ireland director Elisabeth Piveteau. “The Pivolta kits are available in different configurations to suit projects of all sizes. They’re rather like giant pergolas. We supply them in grey or brown – but don’t provide the solar panels.”
Also in the Carrefour construction products hall, Sylneo, a wood composite producer partowned by Piveteaubois (www.piveteaubois.com/en),was showing a new product featuring a co-extruded polymer skin around its wood flour/polypropylene core. This, it said, gives advanced anti-stain properties and allows for greater colour variation.
The company also flagged its aim to move from its current 75% recycled material product content to 100% by 2030.
Cordes (www.cordes-holz.de ), one of Germany’s biggest players in planed timber, structural solid wood panels, cladding and decking (its Bremerhaven factory covers 450,000m2) was focused on its new glulam production. Its spruce Cor-Lam tongued and grooved range is supplied in lengths from 2m to 16m, up to 1m wide and 60-280mm thick and targeted at wall, ceiling and roof construction.
“We are now strongly promoting Cor-Lam to export markets,” said sales representative Jannis Buick. “The German building sector is currently flat, and in any case, we’ve outgrown it. We see particularly strong prospects in France but are yet to be discovered in the UK.”
Hardwood sawmiller and a leading French oak supplier to the UK, Ducerf (www.ducerf.com) continues its progress along the valueadded route (see p29). Making its debut at the CIB was its range of finger-jointed strips for internal screening and slatted walls in French oak and steamed beech. These are supplied in lengths up to 6m and a range of finishes.
A hot off the press launch, was Batichêne, a solid oak CLT developed with the Bois Croisés de Bourgogne business collective. Communications head Carole Debize said it had already aroused considerable interest from architects, under ever growing pressure to decarbonise their projects.
“It will be available in panels up to 3m by 6m and is designed for structural walls and floors in buildings up to three-storeys,” she said. “We believe it’s unique, with an added attraction being the quality of finish, allowing the surface to be left exposed.”
Export manager Florence Perrucaud said the UK continues to be significant for Ducerf, underlining which it is offering a new custom sized oak service for the market.
“We’re also appointing a new sales representative for the market, who will be in post by September,” she said. “Our aim is to further increase market share, especially in more finished products.”
Fellow French oak sawmill and sizeable supplier to the UK, Monniot (www.monniot.fr) reported buoyant demand for boules and strong higher grade business in France and the rest of Europe.
“The challenge is competition for these qualities from the barrel industry,” he said.
Longer term, he added, the company remains upbeat, expecting France’s RE2020 environmental regulation in particular to benefit trade. Among its stipulations is that 50% of construction materials in new public building must be bio-based. Some exhibitors said there were already signs this was boosting demand for timber and wood products, and particularly mass or engineered wood.
Underlining its confidence in the longer term, Monniot has constructed a new unit dedicated to cross-cutting and grading, which it expects to boost productivity by 10-15%.
Steico (www.steico.fr ), which has wood fibre insulation production in France and Poland, also sees RE2020 creating opportunities, notably through its focus on improving housing energy efficiency. The company highlighted major new spending on a low-density fibreboard line, with loft conversion and insulation a key target market. This follows a doubling of Steicoflex insulation production and, through 2021- 2023, investment in its insulation products plant in Gromadka in Poland, forecasted to boost production by €75m.
Okoumé and poplar plywood producer Joubert (www.joubert-group.com ) expected RE2020 to boost demand for certified timber products in particular, highlighting that its okoumé range was covered by FSC certification and poplar by PEFC. The latter, moreover, is plantation grown and largely sourced within a 200km radius of its French plant.
The company, which exports 60% of its annual 80,000m3 output, acknowledged that 2024 had “started slowly, but is now improving”. The UK remained stable.
“We saw no change due to Brexit, and we’ve retained our customer base,” said marketing spokesperson Pierre Marchais.
The EU embargo on trade with Russia saw a range of Siberian larch substitutes being promoted at the CIB. These included Canadian, German, and Nordic larch, but also Douglas fir (of which France is Europe’s biggest provider) and thermo-treated hardwoods, including oak, ash, and beech.
Cladding producer, Sivalbp (www.sivalbp.com ) is now sourcing its larch from a range of sources, including France, Poland and Austria.
“It does have a different aesthetic, including more knots, but customers are getting used to it,” said UK sales representative Yves Baudin.
The company launched a new range, Affinéa at the CIB, in a choice of European larch or Douglas fir, two profiles and grey or wood tone.
Mr Baudin said business in the UK, where Sivalbp sells via Vincent Timber, has been steady.
“It remains our second biggest export market,” he said.
Belgian-based international importer and trader Vandecasteele Houtimport (www. vandecasteele.be) put lesser-known timber species (LKTS) in the spotlight at the show.
“It’s important to use these on environmental grounds, to reduce supply stress on traditional species and use the range of what the forest offers,” said export manager Geneviève Standaert. “It reduces availability issues too and provides more choice.”
Among the species highlighted was louro vermelho.
“This is a great cladding timber, and a replacement for Siberian larch, for which we’re also offering ayous and thermo-treated timber as alternatives,” said Ms Standaert. “Louro vermelho is also a good price.”
With recent CITES Appendix II listings including ipé and cumaru, Vandecasteele has also focused on lesser-known species for decking. At CIB it showed samples of other suitable South American species – balsamo, tanimbuca, sucupira preta and jutai.
The upcoming EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) was another hot topic of show conversation. Companies acknowledged its demand from the end of 2024 for due diligence assurance that timber imported to and exported from the EU is deforestationfree and legal, and for geolocation coordinates for provenance, will be a challenge.
Vandecasteele said it was considering use of Orbify’s geospatial data platform for natural assets monitoring as part of its EUDR strategy.
Interholco, the Switzerland and Africabased timber and further processed product supplier, believes the combination of certification of its African forest and wood operations, plus its own data and traceability systems will facilitate EUDR compliance.
“We already provided geolocation information for our concessions as part of legality assurance under the EU Timber Regulation, and we draw on Global Forest Watch satellite monitoring of forest cover,” said vice-president sales and marketing Christophe Janssen. “Although it’s not related to EUDR, [in terms of environmental validation] we’re also working with the International Tropical Timber Technical Association (ATIBT) on life cycle analysis for our timber products [to enable development of environmental product declarations and health and environment declaration sheets].”
The company, he added, is also part of the European Biochar Industry Consortium, looking at the use of by-products to make biochar, which has uses as a soil improver, in water filtration and as a long-term carbon store, including in concrete production.
With log export restrictions in the Republic of the Congo, where Interholco subsidiary IFO has its production and forest operations, Interholco has also accelerated further processing and finished goods production.
“We’re investing in new edging and kilning capacity, and a new 180m finger-jointing line has doubled our multi-ply window and door scantlings capacity,” said Mr Janssen.
Interholco too, is developing use of lesserknown tropical species.
“Recently we’ve been evaluating olon and olonvogo,” said Mr Janssen. “The latter is very close in performance to iroko, where availability has not been sufficient to meet demand.”
Centre stage on Arxada’s stand was its Tanalith metal-free range, plus the Lifestyle Colours designed for use with both Tanalith MF and E.
“We’re looking at the needs of the market 10, 12 years into the future, and Tanalith MF is one of the outcomes of that longterm focus,” said Arxada marketing director EIMEA Wood Protection Andy Hodge. “It’s ideal for such areas as playground equipment, garden furniture and other out-of-ground contact timber uses. You don’t need that heavy chemical content. An added incentive to choose MF is materials costs, with copper prices up 25% this year. Lifestyle also enables users to be more creative, including through blending to create their own signature colour range.”
PIVETEAUBOIS IN ENGINEERED WOOD PARTNERSHIP WITH BUILDING GIANT
Also, on Piveteaubois’ CIB stand during TTJ’s visit was Pierre-Alexandre Herard, timber construction procurement and partnerships manager at French-based international building giant Bouygues Construction. As part of its environmental strategy, the company has pledged that 30% of its projects in France will be woodbased by 2030. Committing to source 50% of this actually coming from France, three years ago Bouygues signed a ‘framework’ supply agreement with Piveteaubois, which has just been renewed. The prime product provided by Piveteaubois under the deal is its Hexapli CLT, but it also supplies glulam.
“Under the arrangement we secure our supply of engineered timber and at the same time benefit from Piveteaubois’ knowledge of CLT,” said Mr Herard. “We work together at an early stage on new projects, and we’ve also developed commonly with Dassault System an application software system allowing us to increase efficiency on structural analysis and to optimise the volume and area of CLT needed for each development, which takes into account all the site’s health and safety rules. The objective is to have digital continuity from the 3D model to Piveteaubois’ manufacturing machine, to the construction site.”
So far under this programme, Bouygues estimates it has used about 80,000m² of CLT. That includes over 6,000m3 of French pine Hexapli CLT in Campus Engie, the second largest CLT build in France.
ARCLIN AT CIB AS PART OF DRYSHELL SALES DRIVE
American building sector bonding and surfaces specialist Arclin was at Carrefour as part of its drive to develop the European market for its Arctek Dryshell overlay for OSB and plywood (see pp44-45).
Dryshell is based on a proprietary resin formula. It is factory applied and billed as the next generation successor to site-fixed protective polyethylene membranes. The overlay, says Arclin, is moisture resistant and vapour permeable, delivering weather protection to wood-based panels and providing vapour control. At the same time, with panel joints simply taped, it enhances building air tightness.
Already a well-established technology in the US, Arclin’s Paul Worsley said Dryshell is getting a positive reaction from panel producers and processors across Europe, including in the UK where the company recently acquired processor Trade Fabrication Systems.
“OSB producers across the continent are expressing interest,” said Mr Worsley. “They’re looking to add value to their product and evaluating surface solutions.”
