Finnish forest industry production rose by 2% during January-June this year, despite sluggish growth in the world economy and demand for most forest products staying slack, reports the Finnish Forest Industry Federation. Sawn softwood production totalled nearly 7 million m3, which was 2% higher than last year’s figure. Plywood did even better, with production continuing to climb briskly to a record 690,000m3 – 12% higher than the year before.
However, as Finnforest points out, there is a slight excess supply of northern softwood sawn timber on the market, which is due to production volumes remaining at record levels in both Finland and Sweden. Furthermore, a strong euro is weakening the ability of spruce timber producers to compete on price and has led to excess supply of structural timber in Europe, which in turn puts pressure on prices.
In addition, Finnforest says that building activity has been sluggish in Scandinavia, affecting demand for planed products. In the industrial building sector, new building has virtually come to a standstill while repair work has slowed down throughout Scandinavia. Even in central Europe there is a building slump and competition has intensified with increasing production volumes and a weaker dollar.
New mill
Stora Enso will inaugurate what is thought to be the most modern component factory in the world at the end of September. This 6,000m2 factory is located at Ala on the east coast of Sweden and 260km north of Stockholm. The component factory has cost €8m and is part of an investment package totalling €17m which is being made in a sawmill and component factory over a three-year period. The factory will produce four million linear metres per year running two shifts with a total of 28-30 employees.
Recent figures show that Finnish imports of timber set a new record last year at 16.2 million m3, an increase of 4%. Just over 80% of the imports came from Russia, with 10% from Estonia and 4% from Latvia. Imports from other countries were less than 1%.
Stora Enso Timber opened its first sawmill in Russia in August at Impilahti in the town of Pitkäranta in the Republic of Karelia. This event marks the company’s entry into the Russian wood products industry. A second greenfield sawmill in the village of Nebolchi in the Novgorod region is scheduled to come on stream later this year.
The wood procurement area for the Impilahti sawmill will be partly in Karelia and partly in other regions of Russia. The sawmill, which will use only smaller spruce logs, has an estimated annual production capacity of 100,000m3 and will employ 54 people. The total investment is e8m.
UPM-Kymmene‘s Wood Products Industry division also has a greenfield sawmill under construction in Russia, in the town of Pestovo between St Petersburg and Moscow. The cost will be around €35m, its annual capacity 300,000m3 and the mill will be inaugurated in January next year. The sawmill will produce sawn whitewood, which will be exported and sold through UPM-Kymmene’s existing sales network.
Wooden bridge
Moelven Limtre, a company within the Finnforest Group, has supplied the glulam framework that supports what is thought to be the world’s largest wooden bridge, 181m long, spanning the River Glomma at Flisa in Norway. The largest beams are almost 90m long and weigh 80 tons. This recently completed bridge was built by Mesta AS, a new production company in the Norwegian Public Roads Administration.
Mesta specialises in building wooden road bridges and is Moelven Limtre’s biggest customer in this field. In fact Moelven Limtre has worked for some years with the Norwegian Public Roads Administration on the development of wooden road bridges. In this case it was decided at an early stage to build the bridge on the existing stone foundations of the previous bridge on the site. The choice was then between a superstructure in wood or steel and the decision was taken to build in wood with a glulam framework.
“Wooden bridges must naturally be competitive in price, but the local conditions also play an important role in the choice of bridge type,” said Terje Halbakken, building manager with Norwegian Public Roads Administration. “In this case a beautiful wooden bridge also fits in better with the existing environment.”
