In response to recent changes in customer sentiment and order flow, Weyerhaeuser Company is dynamically adjusting operating capacity at certain of its manufacturing facilities.

For the month of April, the company expects to reduce operating capacity by approximately 20% for lumber, 15% for oriented strand board, and 15% to 25% for engineered wood products through a combination of temporary mill curtailments and reduced shift postures.

Weyerhaeuser, one of the world’s largest private owners of timberlands, began operations in 1900. The company owns or controls approximately 11 million acres of timberlands in the U.S. and manages additional timberlands under long-term licenses in Canada.

The Belarussian wood processing industry will become more competitive following the construction of a new timber sawmill in south Belarus being supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). A new privately-owned sawmill will be constructed by Kaamos Timber on a brownfield site near one of the country’s oldest towns Mozyr.

A 7-year EBRD loan of up to EUR 15 million will finance a production facility, which will annually produce around 250 000 m3 of sawn softwood. It will be exported to existing and new markets.

The Mozyr sawmill, owned by Kaamos Timber, a subsidiary of Estonia-headed Kaamos Group a capital-based company that operates in the area of property development, construction, and sawmill industry, will create around 100 new jobs in Mozyr and help Kaamos Timber to almost double its current annual production capacity in Belarus – 450 000 m3 of sawn softwood.

The EBRD has worked with Kaamos Timber for more than two decades and successfully implemented a similar project in the town of Vitebsk, in northern Belarus.

Since the start of its operations in Belarus in 1992, the EBRD has invested almost EUR 2.7 billion in 119 projects in various sectors of the country’s economy.

The total area notified for final felling in Sweden for the whole country was 18 501 hectares in February 2020, which is the same level as in 2019. There is, however, a large variation between different parts of the country, reports the Swedish Forest Agency.

In region Northern Sweden the notified area decreased by 50% to 1 800 hectares, which is lower than average (2 640 hectares) for February during the period 2007 – 2020.

In region South of Northern Sweden the notified area increased by 15% to 3 924 hectares compared to the same period 2019, which is close to the average of 4 040 hectares for February during the period 2007 – 2020.

In region Central Sweden the notified area increased by 26% compared to February 2019 to 6 466 hectares. This is significantly above average (3 333 hectares) for the period 2007 – 2020 and the highest note in 14 years.

In region Southern Sweden the notified area was 6 295 hectares, which is approximately the same level as 2019.

The large decrease in notified area for final felling in February this year compared to the same month 2019 in region Northern Sweden is likely due to the unusually large areas notified last year after storm fellings by the storm Jan.

Due to the storm Alfrida it was same situation in region Central Sweden in February 2019 and the high notes of notified areas remains in February 2020 as well. 

Metsä Fibre has made the decision to build the world’s most modern sawmill in Rauma, Finland. Construction will begin in the spring of 2020. Production at the sawmill is set to begin during the 3Q 2022. The coronavirus outbreak may have an impact on the schedules.

Ilkka Hämälä, President and CEO of Metsä Group, says: “The pre-engineering of Kemi bioproduct mill has progressed well and we expect to reach the decision-making stage in the autumn of 2020, as the environmental permit process is finalised. In this challenging situation faced by the society, what Finland needs now is investments and faith in the future. We estimate that the role of Finnish suppliers will be significant in implementing these investments.”

The value of the Rauma sawmill investment is approximately Euro 200 million, and the new unit will produce around 750,000 cubic metres of pine sawn timber a year. The new sawmill will be a worldwide forerunner in technology and efficiency. For example, using machine vision and artificial intelligence in different stages of the sawing process is a significant new development. Similar technology is not yet in use anywhere in the sawmill industry.

“The next-generation sawmill to be constructed in Rauma is a significant leap forward for the whole industry. The new technology allows for the transition from workstations to control room monitoring and continuous operation. The key elements of the Rauma sawmill’s operating model include employees’ in-depth expertise and multiple skills as well as user maintenance,” says Ismo Nousiainen, CEO of Metsä Fibre. “The demand for high-quality sawn timber will increase globally, especially in the demanding component and woodworking industries.”

The new sawmill will employ around 100 people directly and around 500 people across its direct value chain in Finland. The sawmill’s employment impact during the construction phase is estimated to be roughly 1,500 person-years. The annual use of logs sourced in Finland is estimated to be around 1.5 million cubic metres. Sawn timber produced by the Rauma sawmill will be sold mainly to Europe and Asia.

Metsä Fibre has made an agreement with Veisto on the delivery of the new sawline. This delivery’s degree of Finnish origin is more than 80%. Negotiations with other equipment suppliers are underway. The company has signed an agreement with AFRY on planning the sawmill’s construction phase and with A-Insinöörit on construction management services.

Photo: Ismo Nousiainen, CEO of Metsä Fibre. 

Year 2019 was record-breaking for forest machine manufacturer Logset Oy. The turnover was Euro 48 million, compared to Euro 40.1 million in 2018. FY 2019 operating profit landed on Euro 2.5 million, compared to Euro 1.6 million in 2018. The turnover and result were higher than ever.

However, during the first months of 2020 the market situation has clearly weakened. In the beginning of the year it was observed that the demand for forest machines has decreased. In Finland the demand was affected by labour disputes.

The global market suffered from the amounts of force cut timber due to storms in Central Europe and insect damages in North America and Europe. The price of timber had dropped already before the outbreak of the global Corona virus pandemic. The current risks have to do with the world’s economical state and health issues, as well as how the sales will develop.

Logset believes that the growth target for 2020 is still within reach, even when taking in account the disturbance of the market caused by the Corona virus.

Logset Oy is a Finnish forest machine manuf acturer located in Koivulahti, near Vaasa.

The 6050 carbonator is the first product offering from Tigercat’s new material processing equipment line-up. Unique, cost-effective and eco-friendly, the 6050 carbonator reduces wood debris volume onsite through an environmentally friendly carbon sequestration process with no material pre-processing required.

Logs, limbs, brush, stumps, yard waste, pallets, clean lumber and other clean wood-based debris can be reduced by 90-95%. The remaining carbon-based output – often referred to as biochar – sequesters the captured carbon. Because there is no resulting organic decay, along with the associated release of greenhouse gasses, Tigercat believes that this carbonization process represents the lowest carbon footprint of any competing material reduction method.

For the full news release visit here.

Enviva and The Longleaf Alliance announced the signing of a five-year partnership to protect and restore longleaf pine forests, one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in North America. Enviva and The Longleaf Alliance will collaboratively implement Enviva’s longleaf forest restoration plan.

Longleaf pine forests are a critical forest ecosystem in the southeastern U.S. They are considered high conservation value forests because of their rarity and biodiversity value. Longleaf forests support some of the highest levels of small-scale species diversity of any forest ecosystem in North America.

Once spreading over 90 million acres, longleaf forests today only cover about 4.7 million acres. The partnership between Enviva and The Longleaf Alliance will support the goals of America’s Longleaf Restoration Initiative, an extensive collaboration to increase acreage of longleaf pine forests to 8 million acres across the southeastern U.S.

The Longleaf Alliance will provide technical expertise to ensure that Enviva’s biomass sourcing in mapped longleaf forests improves forest ecosystem conditions. Because many existing longleaf forests need thinning, and because millions of acres of former longleaf forests were converted to other forest types, appropriate biomass removals are a critical step in the longleaf restoration process.

Together, Enviva and The Longleaf Alliance will work with stakeholders, landowners, land managers, and others to support longleaf restoration on public and private lands, as well as to monitor, track, and report on progress.

Enviva Holdings, LP is the world’s largest producer of industrial wood pellets, a renewable and sustainable energy source.

Due to the closure of suppliers of critical components, Komatsu Forest will temporarily shut down its production of forest machinery at its factory in Umeå. On March 26, the company agreed with IF Metall on short-term work from 2020-04-13 through 2020-06-21 for employees in production.

 “The background is that the Corona pandemic has caused some of our suppliers to shut down their production, forcing us to shut down our production completely for three weeks, after which we intend to gradually increase production. However, our production plan assumes that our suppliers can start up their production according to plan and that restrictions on the spread of infection allow it,” says Jens Bengtsson COO of Komatsu Forest.

Other measures that have been taken are that the company has terminated consultancy contracts and laid off fixed-term employees in production.
The company will continue to operate its services to the extent that restrictions on different markets allow.

“We see that in many places around the world, our customers can still operate. Therefore, we will do what we can to safely service and provide spare parts to our customers. Our workshops and service points will carry out their work based on the restrictions set for reducing the spread of infection,” concludes Bengtsson.

If you have any questions, please contact the Press Officer
Annelie Persson
090-709732
annelie.persson@komatsuforest.com 

The New Zealand Government will spend NZ$100 million redeploying forestry workers who have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The forestry industry on the East Coast has been hit hard by the coronavirus because of supply chain disruption in China. Many of the country’s logging crews are unable to work as a result.

Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford, Forestry and Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Employment Minister Willie Jackson announced the funding last Friday. Twyford said COVID-19 has had a “significant” impact on workers throughout New Zealand, but acknowledged that forestry workers in Gisborne have been the hardest hit.

“Our Government is moving quickly to help people stay in work through a NZ$100 million package which will see workers redeployed into local alternative employment for the next three to six months. Of this funding, NZ$28 million will go to Tairāwhiti [Gisborne] to help redeploy almost 300 workers.

“Forestry was one of the first industries to be seriously impacted by COVID-19 but by keeping the infrastructure and workforce of the sector intact, we hope it will be one of the first to recover,” Twyford said.

Jones said the forestry industry, which is responsible for 6.7 percent of regional GDP, is still recovering from a “slow-down” last winter. “Many small firms used their cash reserves to get them through that and some companies are now struggling to survive.

“However, the future for the forestry sector is extremely bright and we want to ensure it is in a position to recover from the economic impacts of COVID-19 as quickly as possible. By redeploying workers to short-term projects, we can help ensure they are available to go back to the forestry sector once it returns to normal,” Jones said.

Jackson said the package includes training, transport, administration, assurance and other project-related services. Alternative work identified for Tairāwhiti forestry workers includes:

• local roading work, including road maintenance
• hazardous tree removal
• fast-tracked One Billion Trees projects
• conservation activities
• retraining and educational opportunities.

The money will be administered by the Provincial Development Unit, the Mayors’ Forum and Gisborne District Council. Affected workers will be referred via the Ministry of Social Development’s Rapid Response Team and affected businesses.

Covid-19 – In this update from Te Uru Rakau, please find information on essential services, ports and registering as an essential service which will or should have been implemented as New Zealand went into Level 4 Alert for Covid-19 late on Wednesday.

At an industry teleconference on Wednesday, Forestry Minister Shane Jones clarified that the bar for essential services had been set deliberately high by the Government and there would be no stepping back from this in the current environment as this disease continues to spread.

Therefore, unless you are specifically identified as otherwise, you should assume that your businesses will need to shut down and that your key task is working to manage this, and to be supporting your people over the next four weeks so they can remain at home.

Please find below the list of essential services within the forestry and wood processing sector:

Essential services within the forestry sector

• Oji’s pulp and paper mill (Kinleith)

• Oji’s stand-alone Tasman chemical plant, for the purposes of producing chlorine for water treatment;

• Secondary wood processes for the purpose of producing shipping pallets, packing cases and other packaging requirements for supporting food, beverage and pharmaceutical supply only;

• Chip and pellet production for supply of essential domestic and industrial heating (such as for hospitals and food processors) using existing raw fibre stock;

• Norske Skog for nine days to produce sufficient newsprint for newspapers for four weeks;

• Dispatch operators within the supply chain ensuring the supply of existing stock materials to these producers. This includes dispatching existing stock from sawmills;

• Nurseries will be able to carry out maintenance to on capital stock and plants to keep them alive. They will not be able to open for business as usual.

Non-essential services

• Sawmills and all other producers of wood products including but not limited to Particleboard, plywood, MDF and LVL

• All secondary processors of wood products except those explicitly listed above.

• Logging harvesters

• These should be shut down by now.

Registering as an essential service

• Registering does not make your business an essential service. You should only register if you meet the strict lists and criteria listed above or on the website.

• If you register and you are not an essential service, you will be breach of the Alert Level 4 protocols. The Government will take such breaches seriously.

• If you are an essential service you must go online and fill out the appropriate forms, and adhere to all safety protocols.

• https://www.mpi.govt.nz/covid-19-essential-primary-sector-service-registration/

Transition period

• Te Uru Rākau had asked the Government mid-week to consider allowing operators to apply for an extension time to shut down processing plants where this is necessary to avoid damaging equipment (e.g. when it takes time to safely shut down boilers).

• If you are in this position you should have contacted Julie Collins or Jason Wilson Jason.wilson@mpi.govt.nz.

Reviewing essential services list every seven days

• Te Uru Rakau have committed to reviewing the list of essential services every seven days.

• However, please remember the bar for essential services is extremely high. While there may be some tweaks, there are unlikely to be significant changes to the list of essential services.

• People and their safety will be the priority in all decision making.

Ports update

• After midnight on Wednesday there should be no logging trucks, taking inventory to ports.

• The use of essential workers to move essential goods and provide essential services is paramount and must be prioritised above all other goods and services at the Port. Only in the following circumstances can non-essential goods at a port be transported:

1. if essential workers are already located at the port for the purpose of dealing with essential goods; and

2. if the movement of non-essential goods at the Port does not impact on:

2.1 the movement of essential goods or

2.2 the delivery of essential services at the Port; or

3. if the movement of non-essential goods are required to create space for essential goods and the movement of essential goods within the port and across the supply chain.

See Transport Sector Essential Services You will need to work with your individual Port operators to establish what that means for the port/ports you operate out of.

Your priority needs to be helping keep people safe

• Te Uru Rakau have stressed while there are essential services within the wood processing industry, they expect strict safety procedures to be followed. Contact with people should be limited where possible. Social distancing between workers should be used. You can find all of the restrictions and safety requirements at Covid19.govt.nz

• Any non-essential personnel should be working from home or simply staying home.

Source: Te Uru Rakau