by Web Editor | Apr 4, 2018 | News
Katerra, a high-tech construction firm, has secured $865 million in funding from SoftBank Vision Fund. That money will go toward ongoing projects in the U.S., like the company’s planned cross-laminated timber plant in Washington, as well as research and development activities.
Katerra says its upcoming 250,000-square-foot Washington plant will help scale up U.S. production of CLT so that the material can be more broadly adopted across the construction industry. Katerra’s manufacturing presence in the region will provide hundreds of jobs and stimulate additional jobs through the larger supply chain and associated industries, including design, engineering, and construction. More than 150 construction-specific jobs will be created to build the CLT factory.
Cross-laminated timber, or CLT, is a key ingredient in the so-called timber towers – multi-story high rises built of wood, some reaching 18 stories or higher. Katerra says CLT is valued due to its low carbon footprint and strength.
“CLT… is a material that creates beautiful spaces, is designed for manufacturing, and is sustainable all at the same time,” said Michael Marks, chairman and co-founder of Katerra. “This material represents a great opportunity to create new value within the construction industry and will be central to many of the projects we’ll be designing and building. We feel very comfortable and excited, particularly with the knowledgeable team we have, to make the jump into manufacturing mass timber. We are ready to help bring mass timber to the mainstream of U.S. construction.”
Katerra is already applying its high-tech construction techniques to manufacture building sections in an existing Phoenix factory, in processes similar to auto plants. The Phoenix plant uses CR Onsrud and Laguna machinery, and fabricates rooms and building sections, including cabinetry, plumbing and wiring.
From Woodworking Network: https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/news/woodworking-industry-news/katerra-receives-865-million-fund-massive-cross-laminated-timber?ss=news,news,woodworking_industry_news,news,almanac_market_data,news,canadian_news
by Web Editor | Mar 26, 2018 | News
From: Panel World Editors
Officials with Oregon State University are investigating a construction incident when a CLT panel failed in mid March at a campus building project. A 4×20 ft. panel, part of the sub flooring between the building’s second and third floors, gave way after delaminating on one end. No construction personnel were in the area and no one was injured. The panel was replaced, other sections of CLT sub flooring were shored up, and work was halted on other CLT sections.
Steve Clark, OSU vice president of marketing and university relations, said the university is bringing in an outside engineering firm to determine cause of the failure and whether any other CLT portions of construction were at risk of failure, and CLT work will resume once any issues are addressed. Ironically, the new Peavy Hall building is home to OSU’s renowned College of Forestry, and the building is designed to showcase Oregon’s forest industry and the relatively new (in North America) mass timber construction movement. However, Clark says project managers “have the utmost confidence in CLT” and plan to finish the project as designed using CLT. The project’s CLT panels are being supplied by D.R. Johnson Lumber of Riddle, Ore., which was the first U.S. producer to gain CLT certification in 2016.
by Web Editor | Mar 23, 2018 | News
Washington State legislators changed building codes in new legislation, a move expected to increase in the use of mass timber products in commercial and residential construction.
The Washington Forest Protection Association says the move will boost business for rural communities and forest landowners and will lead to an increase in the use of mass timber products in commercial and residential construction.
Mass timber products like cross-laminated timber (CLT) have been on the upswing in Washington in recent years, with Vaagen Brothers Lumber of Colville. Wash., and Katerra, a California company both announcing CLT factories in Eastern Washington. The material is increasingly being used in buildings around the state, according to the Washington Forest Products Association.
For Katerra, founded in 2015, CLT is an element in a broader strategy for resetting the building and construction industry. The company announced $865 million Series D funding round led by the SoftBank Vision Fund to fund its new plant in Washington, and it has already accumulated more than $1.3 billion in bookings for new construction, spanning the multi-family, student and senior housing, and hospitality sectors. It already has a fully operational manufacturing facility in Phoenix.
“The $12 trillion construction industry is extremely fragmented with tens of thousands of companies using minimal levels of technology. While labor-productivity growth has skyrocketed in the overall global economy, the construction industry has averaged only 1% annual productivity growth over the past two decades,” said Jeffrey Housenbold, managing partner for SoftBank Investment Advisers. New investors in Katerra’s latest the round include the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), a private investment fund managed by Soros Fund Management LLC, Tavistock Group, Navitas Capital, DivcoWest, and others.
Read more on this from Woodworking Network at https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/news/woodworking-industry-news/washington-state-wil-revise-building-codes-okay-mass-timber.
by Web Editor | Mar 21, 2018 | News
Egger Group, a wood-based materials supplier for the furniture, wood construction and flooring industries, broke ground on its North American corporate offices in North Carolina’s Davidson County. The Austrian panel producer says this is a critical step in expanding its U.S. presence to better serve North American customers.
The office building, which is scheduled for completion in early 2019, will house Egger’s North American future office staff. This building also lays the groundwork for future plant operations, which includes an ‘ultramodern’ particleboard manufacturing plant.
Construction of the plant is expected to start at the end of 2018 and production at the future facility is slated to begin in 2020. Sources report the 4.5 million-square-foot production facility will be spread across more than 200 acres in an industrial park. The first stage of the project will involve the construction of a composite panel plant with coating capacities. The company said the North Carolina plant will feature state-of-the-art facilities and will enable it to better serve customers in North America.The company also plans to establish a training center at this location to train and grow skilled workers in the region.
“Today, we celebrate a significant milestone for Egger’s presence in North America,” said Bernhard Vorreiter, technical project manager. “This groundbreaking is an important moment as we work to become a leading resource for wood-based solutions in North America.”
The office building will house approximately 80 workplaces and improve access for architects, designers, wholesalers and furniture industry customers to Egger’s wide range of wood-based products and cutting-edge designs.
From Woodworking Network: https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/news/woodworking-industry-news/egger-group-breaks-ground-office-building-will-accompany-massive?ss=news,news,woodworking_industry_news,news,almanac_market_data,news,canadian_news
by Web Editor | Mar 19, 2018 | News
Forisk projects U.S. softwood lumber consumption of 49.8 BBFT in 2018. This represents a 3.7% increase from our 2017 forecast of 48.1 BBFT and is 5.4% higher than 2016 actuals of 47.3 BBFT. Softwood lumber consumption increased every year since 2009, but remained 26.4% below the 2005 consumption high of 64.2 BBFT. U.S. softwood lumber production is forecasted to increase 5.0% to 35.6 billion board feet in 2018. The South drives this growth with production expected to rise 6.4% for the year, reaching 19.5 BBFT. This would be a new high for the region, surpassing the 19.0 BBFT of production in 2005. In the Base Case, the South’s share of national lumber production increases 0.8% to 55% in 2018.
We project U.S. softwood lumber self-sufficiency to reach 71.4% in 2018 as imports level off, and U.S. softwood production increases relative to consumption. We expect net imports to remain stable in 2018 due to physical constraints on Canadian lumber producers and their inability to grow exports to the U.S.: raging wildfires; stagnant softwood lumber capacity; increasing domestic softwood consumption; two new tariffs imposed on Canadian softwood lumber imports in 2017; and reductions in annual allowable cuts.
In the Forisk Base Case, total structural panel consumption increases from 31.2 billion square feet in 2017 to 36.6 billion square feet by 2022, increasing at a compound annual growth rate of 3.3%. OSB consumption is forecasted to rise 3.1% over 2017, while plywood consumption is forecast to increase 2.1%. For context, our October 2017 forecast was 3.5% lower than actuals, while our initial January 2017 forecast came in at 0.9% below actuals.
Each year we update a multi-phased study for estimating U.S. structural panel consumption. We test variables such as housing starts, GDP, population and others. Outputs from all approaches – regardless of the approach, variables, or form – tend to correlate highly with each other. Simpler models performed better; our final model had an R-squared of 0.97. Then, we evaluate results of our model relative to history and research by the USDA Forest Service and APA-The Engineered Wood Association prior to incorporating the projections into price forecasts for timber and delivered logs across the U.S.
From FORISK Consulting: https://forisk.com/blog/2018/03/15/forisk-research-quarterly-frq-excerpt-2018-lumber-structural-panel-projections/
