Roseburg Forest Products (RFP) announced on August 25, 2021 that it will shut down its particleboard plant in Dillard, Ore. The plant has been in operation since 1965, and will continue running as the plant prepares for shut down in the next 60 days.

The move to close was part of a restructuring within the company. It comes after an announcement by RFP of a multi-million dollar investment in new technology at its other Western manufacturing facilities.

“The decision to stop production at a facility is never easy, and these transitions have significant impact on the people involved,” Roseburg senior vice president of operations Jake Elston says. “We have already begun working with our current team members on this upcoming transition to identify other opportunities within the organization.”

According to news reports, RFP will offer the 179 employees opportunities at other Oregon facilities after the plant is shuttered—with the goal to offer uninterrupted local employment to as many team members as possible. The company moved its corporate headquarters from Dillard to Springfield, Ore. in 2016, but RFP still operates sawmill and plywood plants in Dillard, as well as a regional administrative office and a truck shop, plus a wood-to-energy plant. RFP also operates plywood and engineered wood plants in Riddle.

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Ashlee Cribb Succeeds Tom Temple At Potlatch

PotlatchDeltic Corp. has appointed Ashlee Cribb as Vice President, Wood Products. She succeeds Tom Temple, who is retiring in October after serving in this role since 2009.

“We are thrilled to welcome Ashlee,” comments Eric Cremers, PotlatchDeltic President and CEO. “Ashlee brings extensive knowledge and a strong track record with over 30 years of industry experience including positions at Georgia-Pacific LLC and Roseburg Forest Products.”

Most recently Cribb served as the senior vice president, chief commercial officer at Roseburg Forest Products based in Springfield, Ore., and prior to that held leadership roles in Roseburg’s Structural Products business. She has an MBA from Washington University, St. Louis, and earned her chemical engineering undergraduate degree at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

“I am looking forward to engaging with the team and continuing a strong commitment to the core values of the company, including excellence in safety,” Cribb says. “The PotlatchDeltic mills are well positioned and I am excited to execute on continued growth and operational excellence to deliver value for our customers, shareholders and communities.”

Doug Asano Steps Up At Roseburg As New Senior VP—Sales & Marketing

Roseburg Forest Products has named Doug Asano as Senior Vice President—Sales and Marketing. He replaces former SVP Ashlee Cribb; Asano transitions from his previous role as director of sales excellence.

“We wish Ashlee all the best in her new opportunity, and we are excited to have someone of Doug’s caliber, scope and experience available to step in immediately,” Roseburg President and CEO Grady Mulbery says. “It’s a reflection of the bench strength we have built as a company over the past several years. We anticipate a transition that allows us to move forward smoothly.”

Asano joined Roseburg in August 2020 after serving as a vice president for nine years with Huber Engineered Wood. At Huber, he brought innovation and transition to national accounts, sales and marketing, all of which fit with his new position at Roseburg. His new role will encompass the entire Commercial Team, including Sales, Distribution, Marketing, and Supply Chain and Logistics.

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Equipment and technology supplier Ledinek reports it has been selected to supply a CLT line for a new venture, Arboreal, in Tacuarembó, Uruguay.

In March 2021, businessman Mark Crandall from the United States and Matías Abergo, CEO of construction systems firm Enkel Group from Uruguay, established Arboreal upon the acquisition of Frutifor Lumber Co., a pine sawmill in Tacuarembó.

They announced an immediate investment in the sawmill’s drying capacity, doubling production to 250,000 m³, while also announcing the implementation of the largest and most advanced CLT plant in South America, with production capacity initially at 50,000 m³ per year. Installation is scheduled for the beginning of 2022.

Arboreal’s investment contributes to the generation of added value from Uruguay’s forest resources, boosting industrial activity in the northern part of the country and promoting the development of environmentally sustainable construction.

“Uruguay has very competitive forestry resources,” comments Abergo as Arboreal President. “When we envision the future, we see mass timber as a solution to reduce CO2 emission by 2030. The construction sector is responsible for almost 40% of the greenhouse gases; this plant is the first step to reduce and sequestrate CO2. We need to start thinking about our homes as big CO2 warehouses.”

Abergo adds: “When selecting the supplier for the CLT line, Arboreal needed to rely on a provider like Ledinek with many years of experience in the market and is capable of providing state-of-the-art machines. Choosing Ledinek as a supplier was a strategic decision; a project of this scale has never been done before in South America.”

 

Martco L.L.C. (RoyOMartin) announced that its Texas subsidiary, Corrigan OSB, L.L.C., will invest $211 million and construct a stand-alone oriented strandboard (OSB) manufacturing facility near its current OSB plant located in Corrigan on U.S. Highway 287 between Lufkin and Livingston.

Construction is scheduled to begin this year, with startup anticipated in 2023. The new facility is expected to significantly increase production capacity at Corrigan, while focusing on existing and new value-added OSB products.

RoyOMartin CEO Roy O. Martin III points to a population surge of more than 4 million residents in the past decade, and more families and companies relocating to the Lone Star state. The increase in home prices and rising costs of building materials, appliances, and labor in the past year indicate a severe shortage of OSB supply, Martin notes. Corrigan OSB is stepping up to meet this increased demand with the addition of the new facility.

“We recognize the trend, and we believe most families want to eventually own their own home in America,” Martin says, noting the ongoing increase in housing starts. As the country and the world make their way out of an historic pandemic, home starts are on the rise, and a growing number of millennials and their families are entering the housing market.

RoyOMartin started up the first Corrigan OSB plant in 2018, and also operates an OSB plant in Oakdale, La., which started up in 2007.

“With this new OSB plant, we will be well positioned to meet the backlog of demand for quality building products, produced from renewable, sustainable resources abundant in our region,” adds Scott Poole, RoyOMartin President and COO. “Our growth in East Texas has given us an influx of talent with a tremendous work ethic, a long-term, sustainable, raw-material base, and access to a growing and vibrant residential market.”

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Mercer International Inc., a global forest products company based in Vancouver, BC, reported it received approval from the applicable Bankruptcy Court for the purchase by its subsidiary, Blue Varsity, of the cross-laminated timber (CLT) manufacturing facility in Spokane, Wash. formerly owned by Katerra for $50 million through a bidding process.

Katerra, a mass timber and modular turnkey construction business founded in 2015, filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in early June. The $150 million CLT plant, which was commissioned in May 2019, was subsequently shut down.

The facility is located on 54 acres and is equipped with extensive automation technologies including one of the largest CLT presses in the world. The plant has capacity of approximately 13MMSF of 5-ply panels annually or 140,000 m3 of annual production.

David Gandossi, CEO of Mercer, states, “We are very pleased with our impending acquisition of the facility. It represents an attractive entry point for us into the CLT business with a near new state-of-the-art facility. It fits well with our strategy to expand in the solid wood products space and aligns with a core value to provide sustainable and carbon reducing alternatives for a warming planet.”

Mercer International has operations in Germany and Canada and reports a consolidated annual production capacity of 2.2 million tonnes of pulp and 550MMBF of lumber.

Another new facility formerly owned by Katerra, a component manufacturing plant in Tracy, Calif., was acquired through a bidding process by Philadelphia-based Volumetric Building Companies (VAC). The company defines itself as a “volumetric modular business that simplifies complex issues by integrating architecture, logistics, manufacturing, and construction into a single package to produce multifamily housing solutions in less time at a greater return.”

Katerra went through $3 billion in equity investments since its founding. In the bankruptcy filing Katerra estimated liabilities of $1 billion to $10 billion

Katerra wasn’t shy about wanting to shake up—and speed up—the conventional construction industry. In addition to building manufacturing plants, it bought everything from architectural firms, to construction firms to dirt contractors. But many of the projects it entered into appeared to experience the same hiccups and cost overruns that conventional on-site construction projects sometimes encounter, and perhaps with less quality, as Katerra tacked on substantial costs related to re-work issues.

Katerra experienced nearly $2.8 billion in financial losses in 2018, 2019 and 2020.

Both Mercer and VAC were stalking-horse bidders whose original bids prevailed for their respective acquisitions.

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