The strength of Nexfor‘s business lies in its ability to take trees in at one end of a factory and produce a flat pack out of the other end according to deputy managing director Dave McElroy.
Engineered particleboard products are a growing business in the UK for the Canadian-owned company and the board of directors is keen to grow the operation in Europe.
The company is actively working to take market share from elliottii plywood and has implemented a campaign warning of uncertainties surrounding use of Brazilian elliottii pine plywood in flat roof deck applications, while promoting its own Sterling OSB as an approved alternative.
Maurice Fitzgibbon, Nexfor’s sales director says that, as the only UK manufacturer of OSB, Nexfor has recently written to architects, roofing contractors and local authority planning officers, saying that, to date, elliottii has not proved its fitness under BS 5268 Part 2, has no BBA Certificate and no EN 300 approval (TTJ June 30).
General awareness
Mr Fitzgibbon says that if a job goes wrong in the future, roofing contractors and specifiers could face financial claims. And he added: ‘We have had an enormous amount of interest from the roofing industry in response to our letter. There is now more of a general awareness of OSB as well.’
Nexfor predicts that European demand for OSB will grow rapidly in the next five years.
Mr McElroy said: ‘The competitive situation in the structural panel business in Europe is undergoing a significant change. A number of recent new OSB plant openings, together with Nexfor’s own 2000 expansion at Inverness, are resulting in a fundamental shift of thinking across the UK and Europe. Wood panel users in construction and other industries are becoming aware that OSB is a better and more cost effective alternative to traditional supplies of plywood.
‘We don’t think that all our distributors, merchants and end users have fully absorbed the meaning of these changes. European OSB consumption, which was negligible in the early 1980s, grew rapidly in the 90s to more than one million m³ by the end of the decade. It will further expand to 1.5 million m³ this year and to almost 3 million m³ by 2005/6.
‘What constrained the product formerly was availability but OSB is readily available now. The wave of new capacity has resulted in a relative price decline. While this is not particularly good news for us in the short term, the shift in competitive values relative to imported plywoods has made the product extremely attractive. OSB is now seen as highly cost-effective, especially when all of the other inherent product advantages are factored in.’
OSB over softwood plywood
Mr McElroy says the advantages for customers of OSB over softwood plywood from offshore are that they don’t face the uncertainties that can arise in import quality, currency swings and timing of deliveries.
He also claimed other benefits for OSB versus plywood. It has a lower ecological impact, he says, as it uses small, immature trees; it offers comprehensive choices; it is knothole free; is easily workable; offers precise and predictable performance, durability and stability; has excellent strength to weight ratio; is resistant to distortion, splitting and delamination; has high rigidity. plus it’s readily available and cost effective.
Prevalent uses for OSB are floor, wall and roof sheathing, timber frame building construction, exhibition stand construction, shop fitting, mezzanine construction, pallets, packaging, hoardings, barriers, boarding up, fences, interior partitions and fittings for sheds and agricultural buildings, decorative and laminated furniture, structural framework in upholstered furniture, I-joist webs and concrete formwork.
Mr McElroy said: ‘We are really excited about the prospects for OSB and we are focusing our efforts on working with those of our customers who share this vision.’
Talking further about Nexfor’s European strategy Mr McElroy said: ‘We have been focused in the last couple of years on improving the assets we have. There have been several components in that process including multi-million pound investment at Inverness and Cowie, the recent closure of South Shields and our company wide margin improvement programme.
‘We have enhanced our existing assets and now look ahead to future areas of growth both in terms of products and geographical regions.’
UK head office
Nexfor completed its 100% acquisition of CSC Forest Products a year-and-a-half ago, and the company’s UK head office continues at Cowie, near Stirling, where it makes Caberboard, Caberwood MDF and Caberfloor.
The Inverness plant manufactures Sterling OSB, while Caberdecor, Conti DIY and Conti Components are made at South Molton in Devon.
The Caberdecor Lamination plant at South Shields was closed recently as part of the restructuring programme. Foil lamination equipment from there was taken to South Molton while the melamine press was moved to Cowie.
Nexfor’s products are distributed through a distribution network – its customer base – to end users throughout the UK and Europe.
In recent years Nexfor has made considerable investment in the UK. A £50m MDF press was installed at Cowie in 1999 in response to market demand that is growing at between 10-12% per year.
Other investments include an £18m continuous press for particleboard at Cowie and a £6m new technology programme to expand OSB production at Inverness.
