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During the Quiet of the Recession LP Starts Up its Solid Start LSL Plant by Rich Donnell

Louisiana-Pacific Corp.’s laminated strand lumber (LSL) plant here continued to fine-tune itself and its product line during the course of 2009. Now it’s waiting on the marketplace to pull in the yellow flag and allow it to pursue 7.5 million cubic feet of annual production capacity.

LP brass committed to the $150 million conversion of the existing OSB plant several years ago. To begin with, LP management already liked the engineered wood products business. The company operates LVL plants in Wilmington, NC and Golden, BC, an I-joist plant in Red Bluff, Calif, and joint venture I-joist plants in Quebec with AbitibiBowater, and maintains a sales and marketing alliance with LVL manufacturer Murphy Engineered Wood Products in Sutherlin, Ore.

PELICE to Feature the Best & Brightest in Atlanta in February

Sixty-five speakers and moderators are participating in the 2010 Panel & Engineered Lumber International Conference & Expo (PELICE) to be held February 4-6 at the Omni Hotel at CNN Center in downtown Atlanta, Georgia.

The event is co-sponsored by Panel World magazine and Georgia Research Institute. The first PELICE was held in 2008 in Atlanta. The conference is supported by an exhibition of machinery manufacturers and suppliers.

Softwood Plywood Producers Awaiting Market Turnaround by Dan Shell

Perhaps the only half-bright silver lining for softwood plywood during the ongoing economic downturn is that thanks to competition from OSB, plywood producers for the past 20 years have been forced to diversify away from structural markets that rely on housing and non-residential construction—economic activities that are currently flat on their backs, figuratively speaking.

Yet while the softwood plywood segment hasn’t seen as drastic decreases in production as OSB, which is more reliant on homebuilding and other structural markets and dropped close to 60% in North America from 2005 through 2009, plywood producers have also seen a big output reduction.

WMF 2010 & FAM 2010 Scheduled March 10-14 in Beijing

The 13th International Exhibition on Woodworking Machinery and Furniture Manufacturing Equipment (WMF 2010) and The 13th International Exhibition on Furniture Accessories, Materials and Wood Products (FAM2010) will be held March 10-13 at the China International Exhibition Centre (CIEC) in Beijing, China.

Despite the global economic downturn, the furniture and woodworking industry in China is gradually recovering and shows encouraging growth, according to show organizers. Domestic sales for furniture in the first half of 2009 reached RMB 152.9 billion, with a 10.6% year-on-year growth. Furniture exports in the first half of 2009 remained high at USD 14.1 billion despite a drop of 9.45%. Trading in China’s wood products reached USD 26 billion in the first half of 2009. Second quarter data showed a more impressive increase rate at 15.05%, when compared to first quarter. Such recovery has reinforced the confidence for WMF2010 & FAM2010, which in turn has resulted in an overwhelm

Recent Mill Orders, Installations & Startups

Star Panel Boards Ltd. of India has placed its first order for a Dieffenbacher continuous press line to manufacture particleboard. This marks Dieffenbacher’s second order for a continuous press in India and the first ever for particleboard.

Star Panel Boards will build the plant designed for a daily capacity of 1,100 m3 at Malur, KIADB Industrial Area, Kolar District in the state of Karnataka. Plant site is 40 km from the City of Bangalore. This plant will boost the local availability of excellent quality particleboard in the market which is estimated to have a demand supply gap of 450,000 m3 per year. This gap is currently met by imports from the Far East and Europe.

Equipment & Supplier News

Exhibitors at the 34th edition of the International Fair for Woodworking Machinery and Tools (FIMMA) and the International Wood and Furniture Industries Suppliers Fair (MADERALIA), held November 3-6 in Valencia, Spain, pointed to the positive results they had gained from participating in the two specialist wood processing and associated technology fairs.

Joaquim Feixas, Managing Director of MEKAKIM, commented, “We were coming from a negative starting point and a general mood of despondency because of the current economic climate. However this year’s MADERALIA was a very pleasant surprise. We have opened up new business channels during the fair that throw some light onto this climate of uncertainty.”

THE PLACE TO BE: PELICE 2010 by Rich Donnell

The second PELICE (Panel & Engineered Lumber International Conference & Expo) will be held February 4-6 at the Omni Hotel at CNN Center in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. It seems like a lifetime ago since the first PELICE was held at the same locale in early 2008.

Do you remember early 2008? The economic numbers had become unsteady. Oil prices were still astronomical. Housing was on the wane. There was talk of a possible recession. But we were viewing it as just another downward lull on the chart of ups and downs in a cyclical industry. “It might get a little worse, but probably won’t last long,” we were told and we told ourselves. It didn’t seem to be anything we hadn’t experienced before. The economy was but one of many topics that the presidential candidates were debating.

Breaking News

John Sununu, former senator from New Hampshire and a member of the TARP oversight panel, said the $700 billion TARP (Trouble Asset Relief Program) and related government-induced economic recovery and investment programs have been largely effective and expressed cautious optimism for the economy in 2010.

Sununu delivered the keynote address at the annual meeting of APA—the Engineered Wood Assn. at Amelia Island, Fla. on November 16.

New Products & Technologies

Wemhöner Surface Technologies presents MasterDigital—a Multi-Pass digital printing machine with a working width of 1,300 mm.

For digital printing Wemhöner focuses on water-based inks, which in comparison to UV inks is beneficial especially for the coating of wood based panels.