Sweet Sixteen

Sweet Sixteen

Sweet Sixteen

Taking Stock Panel World May 2019Article by Rich Donnell, Editor-in-Chief, Panel World May 2019

No, the headline doesn’t refer to the NCAA basketball tournament and the prestige of reaching the tournament’s Sweet Sixteen finalists. Rather it tells the number of Ligna shows in Hannover, Germany I will have attended, if indeed I make the upcoming one at the end of May as planned.

There are certain things in life that serve to remind us of our advancing years—birthdays obviously, marriage anniversaries, the news of a forthcoming grandchild, the age of an old truck still in the driveway. Another indicator for me is the Ligna show.

The number 16 doesn’t sound that many, except that Ligna is held every two years, and so it’s 16 x 2, and that equals 32 years, which is half of my age. In other words, I’ve been attending Ligna shows the vast majority of my adulthood.

1989 was the first one I attended. My post-show report on it spent a lot of words on Bison, the Springe, Germany manufacturer that was selling a good number of presses, including continuous, into North America then. The continuous press was overall a hot topic at Ligna. LP was cranking up several Siempelkamp versions in the U.S. Speaking of Siempelkamp, the 1989 Ligna was where it introduced the company logo it continues to adorn today. A Küsters continuous press was going in at John Godfrey’s new gypsum fiberboard plant in East Providence, Rhode Island.

Our issues of Panel World around that time were also heavy with articles on OSB. In fact 1989 was in the middle of the OSB boom in North America. We visited Huber’s new OSB mill in Commerce, Ga., and Peter Grant’s new OSB line with Dieffenbacher multiple-opening press in Englehart, Ontario, headquarters of Grant Forest Products.

We were also writing a lot about plywood in 1989, which was only beginning to feel the market pinch from OSB. Champion International renovated its plywood mill in Libby, Montana, giving the mill “new life” as our story said. Indeed the plant would run into the early 2000s under Stimson Lumber before giving out.

Information on new technologies for air emissions control began appearing with regularity, and so did advertisements from such companies as Geoenergy with its E-Tube wet ESP.

In the same issue as my post Ligna article, a barely noticeable news release reported that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wanted to list the northern spotted owl of the Northwest U.S. as a threatened species. Industry interests said if that happened it would mean the loss of billions of board feet of timber harvest from federal lands per year and that the industry would tragically and permanently shrink. It happened.

One thing that hasn’t shrunk is the Ligna show. In a way, it’s like going back in time.

 

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After All These Years GP Still Knows Plywood

After All These Years GP Still Knows Plywood

After All These Years GP Still Knows Plywood

Article by Rich Donnell, Editor-in-Chief, Panel World March 2019

Our friends Dick Baldwin and Rich Baldwin write about the North America softwood plywood industry in this issue. They note that about 28 plywood mills disappeared since pre-recession or basically in the past dozen years, leaving 58 or so in operation. They note that Boise Cascade and Georgia-Pacific have the two largest softwood plywood capacities in North America. But things happen quickly in the plywood industry, and I believe it has been since they wrote the article that Georgia-Pacific closed its plywood mill in Warm Springs, Ga. and Boise Cascade sold its mill in Moncure, NC.

Upon hearing that GP had closed Warm Springs, the editors at Panel World began guessing how many softwood plywood mills GP has left. How many do you think? Here’s a hint: They are all southern pine plywood mills. Here’s another hint: The list doesn’t include GP’s original plywood mill site in Fordyce, Ark., which started up in 1964 and was recognized as one of the first three southern pine plywood mills to start up that year (along with Kirby’s mill at Silsbee, Texas and Temple’s mill at Diboll, Texas). Neither GP’s mill at Fordyce or its mill at Crossett, Ark., which started up in 1965, made it out of the recession.

Our best educated guess is that GP’s oldest softwood plywood mill site still in operation is at Emporia, Va. GP started it up in 1966. We think the next oldest GP site still going is Taylorsville, Miss., which started up in 1969. Third oldest GP site still producing plywood? Perhaps it’s Prosperity, SC, which began production in 1975.

So that’s three GP plywood mills still ticking. But there’s more. As best as we can tell, GP still has eight softwood plywood plants in operation. In addition to Emporia, Taylorsville and Prosperity, there’s Dudley, NC, which GP started up in 1980; and plants in Corrigan, Texas; Camden, Texas; Madison, Ga.; and Gurdon, Ark., none of which, we think, GP actually started up but rather purchased.

GP started up the recently closed Warm Springs mill in 1974. The next year GP started up a mill in Talladega, Ala., which GP idled during the recession, then closed in 2016. But the Talladega site has had a resurgence. After the site sat motionless for 10 years, GP has recently started up a new sawmill there, and in fact was able to restore a couple of the barrel buildings that housed the plywood mill. I visited the sawmill in January, and a local at a nearby convenience store told me they were never so glad as when the log trucks started rolling again.

Of course it’s easy for us to toss around mill statistics, but rest assured we’re very sympathetic to the fact that each time one of these mills closes it’s a major life altering episode for the workers and their families. Unfortunately, mill closures has become a fact of life in the plywood industry, but there are signs that this segment is stabilizing, and in fact new plywood mill production has even come on in the past couple of years.

 

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New Company May Finally Give Relevance To Old Scrimber Technology Using Bamboo

New Company May Finally Give Relevance To Old Scrimber Technology Using Bamboo

 

A bamboo engineered building product called GRASSBuilt is being manufactured at a small plant in Meridian, Miss. The patented technology, owned by TimTek, LLC and licensed to GRASSBuilt LLC, involves merging long strands, called scrim, coating with adhesives and steam–pressing to produce bamboo billets, which are further processed for various end-uses.

“Applying the TimTek process to bamboo has really proven to be the perfect marriage,” says Nicholas Wight, vice president of GRASSBuilt. “The process results in what can be described as ‘super bamboo,’ and is extraordinary as a base building material for superstructures, flooring, cabinetry, furniture and a host of other possibilities.”

The company reports that its aim is to shift the dynamic of nearly 90% of all bamboo products in the world being exported from Asia, with China alone accounting for 65% of world exports.

Creating a fully integrated and diverse bamboo economy in North America is the vision of GRASSBuilt founding partner, Sean Hemmings. “I’ve been involved in the bamboo trade for over eight years,” Hemmings says. “Worldwide, bamboo represents a $30 billion industry for China alone. There’s no reason the United States can’t become a vital part of the global bamboo equation and foster our own bamboo-based economy right here in America—especially since the U.S. and EU represent 78% of total end-user consumption of the bamboo-based products currently available.”

Hemmings’ plan centers on sourcing species of bamboo from Mexico and the United States. The Meridian plant currently procures its bamboo from Mexico, where prior to shipping to the U.S. the bamboo is pre-processed, which involves splitting the bamboo culm (stem) apart and planing the inside and outside surfaces to remove the natural waxy substance that won’t bind to adhesive. Another pre-processing step is heating the material in an autoclave with no oxygen in order to carbonize the fiber (a form of thermal modification).

Once the bamboo slats arrive in Meridian they’re run through a scrimming (crushing) mill, coated with adhesives and steam-pressed. The Meridian mill is building inventory of the billets to fulfill orders. It reportedly has had some installations, such as for flooring in Florida, and at Mississippi State University where cut-up billets have been installed as paneling.

“Many Eastern economies, including China, focus on employing as many people as possible,” Hemmings says. “At GRASSBuilt, we look forward to creating new jobs, but also to infusing our innovative, new technology into the equation of bamboo building materials.”

Hemmings adds that GRASSBuilt’s proprietary method of processing bamboo coupled with the plant’s inherent sustainable attributes make bamboo a premier building material for any project that desires to maximize its USGB, and LEED opportunities.

“GRASSBuilt products meet or exceed the most stringent of federal and state regulations for sustainable building initiatives,” Hemmings says. “The same cannot be said for much of the imported bamboo materials. At GRASSBuilt we’re 100% committed to being as sustainable and reliable as possible, and 100% transparent with our materials’ eco-quotient and consumer protection regulations.”

Hemming says bamboo has harvesting rotations of four to six years with certain types growing 2-3 ft. per day. He believes the finished engineered building material will compete in some structural applications, as well as many if not all decorative applications, and find applications in the furniture market.

Increasing sustainability regulations in the construction market, a desire to lessen dependence on imported goods and materials (particularly from China), and the manufacturing trend of bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States after decades of outsourcing all combine to produce a new supply chain economy, according to Hemmings, which he refers to as the “Bam-Boom.”

“I’m not aware of any other U.S. manufacturing firm which is beating China at its own game,” Hemmings adds.

The TimTek manufacturing process stems from a product called Scrimber that was started in Australia in the mid 1970s. The manufacturing process was that pine or other species logs in small diameters would run through a scrimming machine where the log was crushed to form a mat of interconnected long strands, followed by drying, adhesives application, layup and compression, steam pressing, cutting-to-size and finishing.

In 2000 a forest products industry veteran and former long-time Georgia-Pacific corporate director of forest resources, Walter Jarck, spearheaded the formation of TimTek and gained exclusive rights to Scrimber research and technology.

But the technology or product has never found commercial success with wood species. The small Meridian manufacturing plant exists because a previous venture there had a license agreement with TimTek and planned to use wood, but the last recession killed that project.

Reportedly, a plan to build a manufacturing facility in Canada, possibly Quebec, and also using wood, had significant private and government investment behind it but fell through only a couple of years ago.

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Egger Gets Going On P’Board Plant

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Egger reported in mid-November it has started construction on its first U.S. manufacturing plant. Construction of the particleboard plant in Lexington, NC began after the North Carolina Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ) issued an air quality permit. The plant is expected to open in 2020.

Earlier this year Egger broke ground on its corporate office building in Lexington. The building will include 80 work places for its North American office staff and serve as the base for all plant operations.

Egger has already hired 50 employees through its Apprentice Training Program with Davidson County Community College. Egger will hire 400 over the next six years.

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The Year Of The Composite Board

The Year Of The Composite Board

The Year Of The Composite Board

Article by Rich Donnell, Editor-In-Chief, Panel World, January 2019

Plywood mill and OSB mill project startups in the U.S. have received a lot of attention during the past couple of years, and more are forthcoming this year, but 2019 has all the makings as the year of the composite board. Three upcoming board mill startups—with one occurring in each of the first three quarters—come quickly to mind.

Arauco is currently pushing through commissioning toward first quarter startup of its $400 million greenfield particleboard plant in Grayling, Mich. Situated on 160 acres, the 820,000 sq. ft. main building houses a 10 ft. wide by 172 ft. (52.5 m) continuous press and will produce more than 450MMSF annually, complemented by two lamination lines. Log intake began last September.

One of the cool things about this project is that Arauco has been very visible with its progress, sending out periodic updates with site photography and the status of equipment installation.

Swiss Krono is probably looking at a second quarter startup of its new $230 million HDF plant at Barnwell, SC. It’s expected to produce 170MMSF annually beyond what the existing plant there already produces. The new line will also operate a continuous press—this one 10 ft. by 101 ft. (30.5 m). The project has also added a fourth lamination line.

Expected to hit startup in the third quarter is the greenfield CalPlant I (CalAg) rice straw-based MDF plant in Willows, Calif. The $315 million plant will have a production capacity of 140MMSF annually.

Wait. Did I just say rice straw? I did, and it makes me think back to the mid 1990s when ag fiber surged out of the gate—the premise being that instead of farmers burning their crop waste and contributing to carbon dioxide and smoky haze, they could actually sell their waste to board manufacturers.

I visited several of those plants during startup back then—the PrimeBoard wheat straw particleboard plant in Wahpeton, ND; the Isobord wheat straw p’board plant in Elie, Manitoba; the Acadia Board sugar bagasse board plant in New Iberia, La. Prairie Forest Products started up a wheat straw board plant in Hutchinson, Kans. Some other companies built them and some companies announced they were planning to build them but never did.

Why did they fail? Expensive resin? Poor machinery? Weak market promotion and distribution? The scientists got it wrong?

It was about this time that the CalAg principals began researching rice straw MDF, following California state legislation that prohibited farmers from burning rice straw waste. CalAg never gave up on it, through years of trying to tie the financing shoestring but never able to tighten the loops.

At least not until last May, when the money did come together—the majority of it in revenue bonds and the rest in cash equity with an assortment of investors. This plant, too, will operate a continuous press—10 ft. by 116 ft. (35.4 m). The plant will process 275,000 tons of rice straw annually.

Maybe where others failed, this ag fiber plant has a strong sales agent going in, namely Columbia Forest Products, which was one of the minority investors.

Maybe all of those problems from 20 years ago have been solved.

 

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