Stora Enso Timber will soon run production facilities in 10 countries throughout Europe and is rapidly modernising its asset base to meet future challenges.
During the past four years the focus of investments has resulted in doubling the volumes of value-added products and concepts for selected increasing end-use sectors. The business drivers for the investments are to ensure profitability by efficiency in production and customer processes, and to focus on volume-intensive growth products for global markets. Examples of these are the rebuilt sawing lines with online further processing facilities in Swedish mills and building component concepts made in central European mills and part-owned Holzwerke Wimmer.
This year, the majority of Stora Enso Timber’s investments will take place at mills in Finland, Russia and the Baltic states.
Construction products
Products tailored for the construction industry form the lion’s share of the total volume of Stora Enso Timber. The product portfolio covers the needs of CLS markets in the US, Australia and the UK, Japanese standards as well as the various needs in Europe.
“We are striving for a common building standard for European markets,” said Matti Mikkola, director, Business Line Construction. “It is a big challenge that influences the future of the wood based industry on the whole continent. The change starts from solutions on a national level but development aims towards European-wide systems. The future will be for efficiently produced standardised volume products and product families which fulfil the changing EU level requirements and fit the processes of our customers.
“We are working together with European research and standardisation bodies and customer forums to further develop the concept for building products. The coming investments are focused on adding value for our customers in the building industry and trade, in the form of more efficiency in the use of harmonised timber products and the supply chain.”
The development in joinery industry products has also been fast at Stora Enso Timber. These include components and raw materials for window, door and furniture manufacturing as well as planed profiles. The main markets for these products are in Europe, but following the growth in production volumes there is good potential for entering markets outside Europe as well.
Product developments
Product innovations have been made in this area. Last year Stora Enso Timber introduced ThermoWood products and, more recently, WoodHeart components to European markets, after developing both with research institutes.
WoodHeart in particular has been developed based on customer need. Olle Berg, director, Business Line Joinery, explained: “We are searching for concepts where we can truly support and improve the industrial end user’s process and quality of products. Our product basket and production facilities enable us to find and offer a suitable solution matching different needs. WoodHeart, for example, is a component solution for demanding end uses, based on the natural durability of pine heartwood.”
This year, since the Ala, Gruvön and Kopparfors investments in Sweden are finished, the focus of the Nordic Production Group’s investments turns to Finland. The only exception is the component mill that is being built in connection with Ala Sawmill. This will be ready in August with a production capacity of 26,000m3 of finger-jointed and solid glued window components, mainly for the Scandinavian market.
Component line
The component industry will also benefit from the recently finished component line in Honkalahti, Finland. The new line, with special X-ray technology for selecting suitable logs for WoodHeart products, has a component capacity of 20,000m3.
The rationale for all the current investments in the Kitee, Kotka, Varkaus and Veitsiluoto sawmills in Finland is simply to ensure long-term profitability. “All these investments are part of our programme to strengthen the competitiveness of our sawmills in Finland,” explained Pekka Hämäläinen, director, Nordic Production Group. “Profitability will improve through technical development and new value adding concepts with synergies in wood procurement and flexibility in customer service.”
Veitsiluoto investment comprises a new bandsaw unit, an OTC kiln channel and modernisation of steering systems in the production process. This should bring major benefits in production flexibility and the work will be completed in August.
In Kotka the whole sawing section and log infeed will be changed. This will significantly increase the profitability of the mill as it allows for larger log size and increases yield. The new profiling circular saw unit will also go into production in August.
New online further processing facilities will be built in Varkaus and Kitee. With these investments the further processing capacity will rise by 300,000m3 for planing and finger-jointing. The lines will provide customised products particularly for the construction industry.
The Impilahti Sawmill in Karelia is progressing well and the start-up of this 100,000m3 capacity mill with profiling circular saw technology will take place in August. As there won’t be any kilning facilities, the concept is in co-operation with Kitee Sawmill, 140km away, to ensure consistent quality of the products.
The second sawmill in Russia will be built in Nebolchi close to Novgorod. The concept is similar to the Impilahti mill, except that the centre pieces will be sold green. The sideboards will be kiln dried at Stora Enso Timber’s other mills. Building at Nebolchi will start in May and the mill is expected to be ready this December.
After acquiring a 66% share of Baltic wood products company Sylvester, now known as Stora Enso Timber AS, the challenge is to integrate the operations with the group, and at the same time, run an ongoing investment programme.
According to Seppo Vainio, director, Baltic Production Group, fine-tuning of the mill’s operations has already begun to best fit the raw material base, production facilities and products most suitable for these. The current investments relate to crystallising the role of the mills in Stora Enso Timber’s product and production portfolio.
Lithuanian sawmill
The biggest project is the building of a new sawmill with online further processing facilities in Alytus, Lithuania. Both this and ongoing investment in the planing line and kiln drying capacity in Sauga Sawmill in Estonia will focus on CLS products. This concept has been found to support the profitability targets of the company very well, as in Plana, the Czech Republic, for example. Alytus will go into production in August and is expected to reach full sawing capacity of 150,000m3, of which 100,000m3 will be planed, in 2004. The S4S and profile planing line at Sauga will start operation in June.
The volume of component products will more than double in Estonia. In 2004 the capacities will be 38,000m3 in Imavere and 11,000m3 in Viljandi.
Investments are also being made in Näpi Sawmill in Estonia and Launkalne Sawmill in Latvia, mainly to improve the processes and increase kiln drying capacity. Näpi will receive new stick-stacking and dry sorting equipment, as well as a planing line.
Holzwerke Wimmer, 49% owned by Stora Enso Timber, will reopen the Pfarrkirchen mill in southern Germany this month after the mill was totally destroyed by fire in August 2001. The state-of-the-art production plant will concentrate on flexible production of KVH and duo/trio laminated beams for trade and the construction industry. The production line is also capable of producing customised products in small series to complete the product family of Wimmer, together with top Zdirec production in the Czech Republic.
