Timber Industry Feels Wrath Of Michael’s Aftermath

Timber Industry Feels Wrath Of Michael’s Aftermath

 

As one forest products company timberlands official who worked in the vicinity of last year’s Hurricane Michael and 2005’s Hurricane Katrina observed, Michael made Katrina “look like a thunderstorm,” with regard to the unprecedented damage to timberlands. (Katrina inflicted a far greater death toll as it came into Louisiana and Mississippi.)

The Florida timber industry is truly seeing the consequences of Hurricane Michael nearly seven months after the storm hit.

Rot, bark slippage and blue stain are beginning to settle in as timber salvage efforts continue in the wake of Hurricane Michael.

Michael came ashore October 10, 2018, the eye crossing Mexico Beach and then moving inland and northeast, causing catastrophic or severe damage to 2.8 million acres of Florida timberland according to the Florida Forest Service. A Category 4 hurricane with winds reaching 155 MPH, Michael cut an 80-mile wide swath across 11 counties in the Florida Panhandle, where conservative estimates put timber loss in the state at $1.3 billion and total damage expenditures at $39 billion. According to the Florida Forest Service, 72 million tons of prime timber were broken or blown over—imagine 2.5 million loaded log trucks—affecting 16,000 private landowners.

Florida’s estimated monetary timber loss is just less than double that reported by the Georgia Forestry Commission, which stated that 2.37 million acres of Georgia forestland sustained damage valued at $763 million.

In packaging an emergency landowner assistance funding request of $583 million, the Florida Forest Service indicates the potential for significant increase in wildfires over the next 10 years. Usually, the Panhandle has 4.87 tons per acre of available fuel; post-Michael, the average is 58 tons per acre, a 10-fold increase, and in the catastrophic areas of Bay, Calhoun and Gulf counties there is more than 100 tons per acre of fuel on the ground.

Wildfires aren’t the only major concern for the Panhandle. Reforestation remains uncertain for the 16,000 private landowners who make up nearly 80% of the devastated timber base, as they watch family investments, college funds, retirement funds and other generational security rot away. Florida Forest Service notes that without guidance and financial support many of the private landowners will not clean up and will definitely not replant.

Florida Forest Service Director Jim Karels told a Senate committee it could take a decade or more for Florida’s timber industry to recover as he recommended that the state provide funding to help nonindustrial private forest landowners clear fallen trees and start replanting the forests, and for equipment and programs to help reduce the fire threat.

Coastal Plywood in Havana, Fla. lost about a week of production following the storm due to power outage, but the mill held up well during the storm. Officials expect to see some increase in raw material costs, and without question an increase in haul distance.

Rex Lumber’s SYP sawmills in Graceville and Bristol, Fla. had to cut production in January due to weather and log flow. Winter rain hampered the recovery effort, and an official there said the window to salvage wood had moved into weeks.

Sapp’s Land & Excavating, Inc., based in Chipley, Fla.—about 70 miles north and slightly west from where Michael’s eye came ashore—reduced number of operating crews from five to four due to losing a few employees to the demand for equipment operators in the area for the cleanup effort.

Sapp purchased and implemented a John Deere 2554 log loader with a dangle sawhead that allows the operator to cut wood parallel to the ground.

For Sapp, whose main chips market is Enviva’s large wood pellet mill in Cottondale, production has shifted to a higher concentration of standing timber, as opposed to timber already blown down from the storm.

Morris Timber Products of Lynn Haven, Fla. made machine purchases following the storm to aid operators and bring efficiency to its peak. Morris has two Barko 595 track shovel machines outfitted with topping saws in order to clear up standing trees that are broken. Morris has his shovel operator trying to handle cutting and pushing stumps as best as he can—with the realization that stumps are going to be one of the biggest challenges to those who decide to replant.

His crew is also making heavy use of two Caterpillar 521 track cutters with 360 degree rotating sawheads, which allow operators to flip the head over and cut trees on the ground.

WestRock, which operates a corrugated packaging mill in Panama City, returned to full production of containerboard during November 2018; however, given the damage to the facility, the company didn’t expect the mill to return to full pulp production until the end of June.

In early April, the Florida legislature was nearing passage of a $90 billion budget that included $1.6 billion in emergency funds and another $220 million for Hurricane Michael.

Forest2Market, a global provider of timber prices, market data and in-depth analytics for suppliers and consumers of wood raw materials, believes overall the damaged timber inventory represents about a 12-year equivalent of current annual removals and more than a 15-year equivalent in the severe and catastrophic damaged areas.

The impact of the initial loss of inventory combined with the intense harvesting in areas only moderately damaged, or those left luckily unscathed, will result in an age/class imbalance. Forest2Market believes this will help intensify competition for available timber and result in some strain on supply that will drive prices higher for years. It is possible this will also affect the current oversupply of sawlogs.

Federal government aid could also come in the form of timber sales and harvesting in the Apalachicola National Forest, which is east of where the storm came in. Some tonnage could be flowing out by the end of this year.

 

Latest News

Rosboro Advances With Glulam

Rosboro Advances With GlulamMajor glulam producer Rosboro Co. named several primary suppliers for its upcoming $100 million-plus...

Find Us On Social

Newsletter

The monthly Panel World Industry Newsletter reaches over 3,000 who represent primary panel production operations.

Subscribe/Renew

Panel World is delivered six times per year to North American and international professionals, who represent primary panel production operations. Subscriptions are FREE to qualified individuals.

Advertise

Complete the online form so we can direct you to the appropriate Sales Representative. Contact us today!

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.

 

Latest News

Weyco Expanding In Arkansas With EWP

Weyco Expanding In Arkansas With EWPWeyerhaeuser Co. has announced plans to invest approximately $500 million to build a new, state-of-the-art...

GP Shakes Up Operations Leadership 

GP Shakes Up Operations Leadership  Georgia-Pacific has changed its operations leadership. Jeff Koeppel, senior vice president of operations, will...

 Dieffenbacher Acquires Pagnoni

Dieffenbacher Acquires PagnoniGerman machine and plant manufacturer Dieffenbacher has acquired the Italian family-owned company Pagnoni Impianti...

Find Us On Social

Newsletter

The monthly Panel World Industry Newsletter reaches over 3,000 who represent primary panel production operations.

Subscribe/Renew

Panel World is delivered six times per year to North American and international professionals, who represent primary panel production operations. Subscriptions are FREE to qualified individuals.

Advertise

Complete the online form so we can direct you to the appropriate Sales Representative. Contact us today!

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.

 

Latest News

Freres Fire Response Lawsuit Dismissed

Freres Fire Response Lawsuit Dismissed  A federal judge has ruled against Freres Lumber Co. and subsidiary Freres Timber of Lyons, Ore., dismissing...

McClure Steps Down From Altec

McClure Steps Down From AltecAfter a remarkable 50-year career, Allan McClure has stepped down from his role as General Manager of Altec...

Arauco Plans MDF to OSB Conversion

Arauco Plans MDF to OSB ConversionChile-based Celulosa Arauco y Constitución S.A. (Arauco) has selected Dieffenbacher to supply an OSB plant to...

Find Us On Social

Newsletter

The monthly Panel World Industry Newsletter reaches over 3,000 who represent primary panel production operations.

Subscribe/Renew

Panel World is delivered six times per year to North American and international professionals, who represent primary panel production operations. Subscriptions are FREE to qualified individuals.

Advertise

Complete the online form so we can direct you to the appropriate Sales Representative. Contact us today!

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.

RELATED ARTICLES

BAMBOO MILL GAINS STEAM

 

Latest News

Rosboro Advances With Glulam

Rosboro Advances With GlulamMajor glulam producer Rosboro Co. named several primary suppliers for its upcoming $100 million-plus...

Find Us On Social

Newsletter

The monthly Panel World Industry Newsletter reaches over 3,000 who represent primary panel production operations.

Subscribe/Renew

Panel World is delivered six times per year to North American and international professionals, who represent primary panel production operations. Subscriptions are FREE to qualified individuals.

Advertise

Complete the online form so we can direct you to the appropriate Sales Representative. Contact us today!

Egger Gets Going On P’Board Plant

Egger Gets Going On P’Board Plant

 

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.

RELATED ARTICLES

PANEL WORLD MAY 2021

EGGER STARTS UP IN NORTH CAROLINA

 

Latest News

Rosboro Advances With Glulam

Rosboro Advances With GlulamMajor glulam producer Rosboro Co. named several primary suppliers for its upcoming $100 million-plus...

Find Us On Social

Newsletter

The monthly Panel World Industry Newsletter reaches over 3,000 who represent primary panel production operations.

Subscribe/Renew

Panel World is delivered six times per year to North American and international professionals, who represent primary panel production operations. Subscriptions are FREE to qualified individuals.

Advertise

Complete the online form so we can direct you to the appropriate Sales Representative. Contact us today!