Panel World Issue: July 2010

Subsidiaries of Georgia-Pacific are purchasing Parsons & Whittemore’s Alabama River and Alabama Pine pulp mills in Perdue Hill, Ala. This acquisition includes the assets of the pulp mills, Alabama River Woodlands, the tall oil plant, biodiesel plant, chip mills at Elba and Jacksons Gap, Ala., and a pulpwood yard at Demopolis, Ala.

Columbia Forest Products is operating a new 8 ft. rotary lathe line at its hardwood plywood plant here. The Old Fort mill, which Columbia built and started up in 1982, primarily peels yellow poplar for its inner plies, and transports in a variety of species of rotary and sliced veneer styles for the face stock, which is integrated into a one-step layup system.

Biele’s wood division, Biele Wood, exhibits the latest developments in complete production lines for wood manufacturing. For the panel and flooring (laminate and solid wood) producers, Biele Wood introduces in detail automatic layup and press lines, trimming and finishing lines and inspection and packaging lines for: plywood, HPL (thin laminate and compact), blockboard, multilayer blockboard, veneer coated panels, melamine coated boards (short cycle laminate press lines), PVC coated panels, and finish foil coated panels.

Composite Panel Assn. celebrated its 50th anniversary during its annual meeting at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point here May 2-4. One of the most discussed issues during the event was the industry’s wood fiber resource, especially in relation to the emergence of the new generation wood bioenergy industry and the U.S Dept. of Agriculture’s Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP), in which the government makes matching payments to owners of biomass raw materials delivered to qualified biomass conversion facilities.

In January 1960, representatives from nine companies affiliated with the forest products industry gathered and founded the National Particleboard Association. Their agenda to nationalize a relatively new product—composed of mill residues—that could displace some traditional lumber and plywood applications, was very much New Frontier.

BM&M Screening Solutions officially opened its new 40,000 sq. ft. head­quarters and manufacturing plant at an open house in April in Surrey, British Columbia. Company President Collin Jackson comments, “This new facility will expand BM&M’s manufacturing capacity and improve efficiency in producing its industry leading high speed flat rotary screens for processing bulk materials from wood chips, to grains, coal, agricultural and chemical bulk products.”

Maximizing quality and production have been paramount goals since the beginning of oven drying veneer over a century ago. In the past 50 years, operators have learned that both production and veneer quality can be improved by regulating dryer exhaust. But this approach also increased plant fugitives, until now. Restricting dryer exhaust prevents air from entering the dryer ends, which increases the humidity ratio (water vapor to air ratio), and water vapor delivers more heat to the veneer than dry air.

The Richter magnitude 8.8 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck south-central Chile on February 27 played no favorites, devastating families and destroying homes, offices, industry and infrastructure in coastal communities and inland cities alike. With most of its production facilities located in the regions hardest hit by the disaster, Arauco, a leading forestry company, suffered considerable damage.

Dieffenbacher has been commissioned to supply a continuous press line for the Columbian company, Tablemac MDF S.A.S. The CPS continuous press (8 ft. x 16.4 m) provides an annual production output of 130,000 m³ and is being integrated into a used production plant at the Barbosa site. The first panel is planned for June 2011.