We began our survey last year by saying that 2009 was the year when “dire economic conditions finally caught up with capacity development in the MDF industry”.

Since January 1, 1999, EPF, the European Panel Federation, has represented the European manufacturers of particleboard, MDF and OSB, with a total production in 2003 of 36.1 million m3 of particleboard, 11.2 million m3 of MDF and 2.4 million m3 of OSB.
The EPF thus took over the tasks of FESYP, the European federation of associations of the particleboard manufacturers (founded in 1958), and Euro MDF Board (EMB), the European federation of MDF manufacturers (founded in 1986).
The above two paragraphs, taken straight from the EPF website which can be found at www.europanels.org, go some way towards explaining the background to the  organization which represents the vast majority of European composite panel makers.
The formation of the EPF from the two constituent bodies, FESYP and EMB, marked something of a milestone in the history of the European industry in that it gave one voice to the particleboard and MDF industries at a time when various and increasing challenges required strong and credible political and public representation.
At the time of its formation, the EPF, at least officially, represented only particleboard and MDF interests; the OSB manufacturing sector had no official voice.
“There was no association for OSB and when a number of manufacturers became established they started thinking about a promotional organisation for their sector,” says Kris Wijnendaele, secretary general of the EPF. “The need for such an association became very acute when OSB capacity in Europe increased and, as all OSB producers were also producers of particleboard and/or MDF, we thought it logical to offer them a structure which already existed. There was no change to our official structure – all but  one producer was already a member of EPF so we simply added OSB to the EPF in 2001.”
The process of combining the EPF and EMB was concluded in 1997/98 and the first joint annual meeting was in fact held in Munich in 1998, with the EPF formally ‘taking over’ from both organisations in January 1999, with Frans de Cock of Unilin of Belgium as its first president.
“The main driver was that most leading companies in both organisations were producing both particleboard and MDF and did not see the necessity for two organizations with two separate sets of meetings and so on,” points out Mr Wijnendaele.
“Both were different in that FESYP was representing the particleboard industry as a lobbying body on technical and environmental standards and on political issues, while the EMB was set up at the beginning of MDF in Europe as a communication and promotion tool for the product, to assist people in using this new panel.
“But by the end of the 1990s, MDF was so well established that [EMB] members thought it could be added to the work of FESYP in one larger organisation.”
So that leaves the European plywood producing industry currently outside the EPF structure.
These companies have their own representative body, FEIC – the European Federation of the Plywood Industry (www.europlywood.org). It is headquartered in the same building as the EPF in Brussels, and Mr Wijnendaele is secretary general of both organisations.
For the first time, the FEIC held its annual meeting at the same time as the EPF in June 2004. The two organisations’ members shared the gala dinner and the open part of the general assembly (to which press and associate members are also invited and which offers an opportunity to suppliers to give some promotional information to members).
“Why did we do this?” asks Mr Wijnendaele. “If you look at some of the bigger players, several produce plywood and particleboard/MDF and several of the bigger plywood producers like the opportunity to talk to OSB producers. They also want to be active in the wider European wood based panels industry. That is why we came to the idea of ‘combining’ our annual meetings.”
It must have been well-received because the format is to be repeated for this year’s annual general meetings, this time to be held in Riga, Latvia.
Both EPF and FEIC come under the umbrella organisation CEI-Bois, also headquartered in Brussels.
“We are based in Brussels because of the issue of representation to the main European institutions,” points out Mr Wijnendaele.
CEI-Bois, the European Confederation of woodworking industries, was founded in 1952 and represents the interests of the European woodworking industry, which includes some 100,000 companies employing around 1.9 million workers. It is again in the same building as the EPF and FEIC.
The primary goal of CEI-Bois is to further the interests of the European wood sector and, to this end, it aims to influence EU policy making. It is the main body representing and defending the interests of the European woodworking industries towards the European Union.
That is a quotation from its website, www.cei-bois.org and really encapsulates the aims and objectives of its two member organisations too.
“CEI-Bois has two parts,” explains Mr Wijnendaele. “One is everything concerning the solid wood processing industry, with branches in sawmilling, (represented by EOS), parquet (FEP) and wood preservation (WEI).
“The other is the panels side of the industry, represented by EPF and FEIC.”
The Confederation also has two categories of members: national associations and those European branch organisations.
There is another organisation representing another sector of panel manufacture: the producers of wet-process fibreboard (hardboard, and softboard or insulation board) have their own association, FEROPA, the European Federation of Fibreboard Manufacturers, headquartered in France, whose website can be found at http://members.lycos.fr/feropa.
Coming back to the subject of the EPF, the federation has a managing board comprised of a president, from the particleboard and/or MDF producers, a vice-president and seven board members, also all from the producing industry. The president (currently Lazlo Döry of Constanzia-Iso AG) is the chairman of the board and normally serves for a period of four years, with re-election at the AGM each June.
The managing board is responsible for the day-to-day running of the EPF and putting forward major policy decision proposals to the federation’s general assembly, which is open to all members. The assembly is held three times a year, in the autumn, spring and just before the annual general meeting, in June. The EPF has two categories of members:national member associations (WPIF in the UK, AssoPannelli in Italy, Febelhout in Belgium, and so on); and individual companies and groups which can be direct members, whether or not they are in their national associations.
“We find it invaluable to have industrialists contributing to the work of the EPF and participating in meetings,” says Mr Wijnendaele. “Our prime objective is that the industrialists have maximum input to ensure that what we do helps the companies in the industry as much as possible.”
The EPF has five working groups: economic affairs, technical, environmental, OSB, and promotional. These are all tied in with the official working groups on standards such as CEN/TC112-Wood Based Panels.
Funding for the EPF comes from two directions. Firstly, there is a fixed fee payable by every member. Secondly, there is a fee calculated on a company’s individual production volume of particleboard, MDF and OSB up to a ceiling of €50,000 for individual member companies or associations.
There is also a category of membership for ‘associate members’. These include machinery makers, resin, additive and service suppliers, paper and decor producers, consultants, powder coating suppliers and so on, as well as the North American Structural Board Association (SBA) and the Italian organisation for collecting and recycling wood. “In fact anyone who has an interest in the European wood based panel industry,” confirms Mr Wijnendaele.
“The associate members have no voting rights but can be invited to give presentations to working groups or the general assembly or to contribute expertise on a specific subject.”
Other sources of funding for the EPF are sales of its very comprehensive annual report and services for other organizations in acting as consultants, or in a similar capacity.
“We are very focused on what is important to our members,” points out Mr Wijnendaele. “We like them to come to meetings and say what they want from us and also we can show them what we are doing on their behalf. Opportunities for networking among members are also very important.”
So what does Mr Wijnendaele see as the main strengths of the EPF?
“We have a broad membership structure covering virtually all EU25 countries and some others. It includes many suppliers in closely related industries and covers the vast majority of European producers.
“Also, our structure and our ties to CEIBois and the various national associations leads to an efficient decision-making mechanism and lobbying capabilities with very wide networking to relevant countries, decision making bodies and European and international standardisation. Our quarterly meetings also allow quick decision-making and the launching of actions through our network. And with a relatively small team, we can get widely coordinated representation actions.”
What does Mr Wijnendaele see as the main challenges for the industry today?
“Raw material supply in competition with the energy sector – ‘the biomass issue’,” he says, referring to the subsidising of power generators in Europe in the last few years.
“We have to convince all relevant authorities and institutions – and the public – that wood’s first use should be for products which can be reused or recycled and that the primary form of recycling is panels. After this, the prolonged life cycle can still be used to recover energy from them and through this prolonged life cycle, carbon from the original tree is stored for much longer and this contributes to the Kyoto Protocol objectives.
“This is CO2-neutral energy production plus a whole value chain, adding a factor of at least plus-25 in employment and plus-10 in value per cubic metre of wood products, compared to burning that original cubic metre of wood.
“The big fear is that wood will become too expensive as a result of competition from the energy sector.”
On this issue, Mr Wijnendaele says the EPF has achieved the setting up of, and involvement in, a working group within the EC (European Commission) which has  concluded that the subsidy of, and support for, renewable energy is slanted too much towards the benefit of energy producers rather than increasing the supply of raw materials for renewable energy, to the benefit of the whole forest-based industry chain.
Also, in a communication on renewable energy sources issued by the EC in May 2004, the Commission did not decide to increase the targets for biomass energy as intended, but said it wants to set up a biomass plan to ensure that its policy does not distort wood raw material markets.
“This shows that the EC is listening and realising the distortion effects and this is partly because of the work of the EPF in the working group with the Directorate General of Transport and Energy,” says Mr Wijnendaele.
The EPF also keeps an eye on trade and anti-dumping issues.
A third important area is in promoting the interests of wood in terms of sustainable development and the EPF is working hard to have wood based products recognised as carbon sinks under the Kyoto Protocol.
The Construction Products Directive and its requirement for CE marking of structural panels is also a well-documented area of heavy involvement for the EPF in recent years. The Federation is now disseminating information on this to architects and specifiers; and to the trade itself.
The EPF also continues to address the issues raised on emissions of VOCs (volatile organic compounds) with respect to raw materials and products, and is active in public advocacy and following up regulatory initiatives that may impact production plants, or the classification of products.
“We encourage members to reduce the environmental impact of their products and processes in the context of ‘sustainable development’,” says Mr Wijnendaele.
In addition to all the foregoing activities, the EPF runs test projects and has two in progress currently.
One is on reaction to fire in actual use situations, and of panels not covered by existing classifications. The other is the determination of the moisture resistance of wood based panels, eventually using a single test rather than the two systems currently accepted under CE marking.
“We have set up an evaluation project with six European test laboratories and 12 European panel manufacturers to evaluate this wet bending strength method and hope to report later this year,” says Mr Wijnendaele.
The issue of competition for wood for energy generation versus panel production was a classic case of somebody having what seemed like an excellent idea – encouraging the production of energy from renewable fuel. But they failed to think of the farreaching consequences and implications – for example for the panel industry – of their decision to subsidise energy production from wood.
That is the strength of having an organization such as the EPF which can watch out for such ‘low-flying missiles’ and hopefully shoot them down on behalf of the industry before they do irreparable damage.

The Schelling Group of Companies trades internationally and manufactures customised solutions for sheet mate- rial sizing in the wood panel, furniture,  metal, plastics, and electronic circuit board industries.
The company says its engineering expertise covers all areas from saw con- ception and design to the production, delivery and start-up  of production  mod- ules and that it can deliver turnkey systems.
These systems can include the mechani- cal assemblies and software modules for turnkey plants and production  lines for automated handling of wood panels such as particleboard, OSB and MDF, as well as cut-to-size, sorting and stacking plants for automated handling of wood, alumini- um, plastic and electronic circuit boards.
Precision saw machines in turnkey sys- tems with speciality tooling, waste removal and material transportation with automated  handling of wood, aluminium,  plastic and circuit board sheeting is all part of the competence of the company, according to Mr Rohner, manag- ing director of Schelling.
“The main drivers for Schelling’s success in the market are its individual and professional solu- tions combined with the latest technology, for example the highest cutting speed in the market,” said Mr Rohner.
“The knowledge gained from 88 years of experience in the business enables us to find the most economical solution for cus- tomers’ individual requirements,” he said. This year, Schelling says it will present its solutions, technology and competence at the following exhibitions: Ligna in Hanover/Germany from May 2-6; BWS 2005 – the international trade fair for woodworking  processing held in Salzburg Austria – April 6-9; and AWFS Vegas Show at the Las Vegas Convention  Centre from July 27-30.
The company also exhibited at Interzum Guangzhou in March and Woodmac  China in Shanghai, also in March.
At Ligna, for example, the company will show its 50m3   per hour system with saw speeds of up to 70m per minute for the ASH Evolution model at full book height of 210mm and speeds above 120m per minute for the cross-cut saw.
The latest development of the finish-cut saw Schelling FXH will also be on show.
“The core activity for the coming years is to improve our strength which we see in marketing,  product and process develop- ment, sales with project development,  pro- duction (including design, manufacturing, and start-up)  and service,” said Mr Rohner.  “Essentially, Schelling, sees itself as a customer-oriented specialist provid- ing custom-designed, high-tech solutions for the processing of boards for the panel industry, furniture  industry, non-ferrous metal, plastics and the circuit board industries.”  

The wood based panel industry consumes energy on a large scale and in various forms. For instance, the MDF production line consumes saturated steam to pre-steam wood chips in the cooker and in the refiner, while hot gas is required to dry the wet fibres, and thermal oil is used to heat the fibre mix in the press.
The energy plant is another of the core pieces of any production facility, requiring reliable high-end technological solutions and maximum availability,” says Vyncke’s senior sales manager, Lieven Tarras.
For its thermal energy, the wood based panel industry is generally self-sufficient since its own production waste is used for fuel, giving threefold benefits: elimination of waste; savings on fuel cost; and a cleaner environment.
Each energy plant has its own features, mainly depending on the type of raw material and board being produced. This implies that each panel production line needs a tailor-made energy plant which takes into account the different fuel specifications and ratio of energy output.
Vyncke Clean Energy Technology, based in Flanders, Belgium, has supplied  custom-made energy plants throughout the world for almost 100 years. Now with over 3,500 references worldwide, Vyncke claims it is the best-known supplier of biomass-to-energy solutions for the board industry. In fact it says a trip around the world is necessary to describe the activities of its ‘Vynckeneers’.
“We are the market leader for large wood based panel energy plants in China, starting up eight energy plants in the 45-70MW range for the leading Chinese MDF producers in 2004,” says Mr Tarras, adding: “Several repeat orders from satisfied customers such as Asia Dekor and the Dare Global Group followed.”
In 2004 Vyncke’s China office moved from Beijing to Shanghai to be closer to its customers for service and assistance.
All the company’s energy plants in China are equipped with the Dynamic Watercooled Stepgrate. The table on the following page gives a list of all energy plants commissioned within the last year in China by Vyncke, except the ones for Guodong (MDF) in Shengdu and Decade Woods (particleboard), which are scheduled for commissioning in 2005.
Most commentators anticipate an increase in particleboard plants in China and Vyncke says it is already in the design stage of two energy plants for that sector.
For Decade Woods in China, it will install a 29.5MW energy plant, while for SPB Panel in Thailand, the company was selected to supply and install an energy plant fuelled with waste from palm oil plantations – the first of its kind in the world.
As fuel availability is rather limited in the particleboard industry, more biomass needs to be sourced from outside.
Vyncke’s Dynamic Water-cooled Stepgrate, as a multi-fuel step grate, can take other types of biomass.
Vyncke energy plants for Metro Particle Board and Rayong (both in Thailand) came on stream in 2004 and are producing thermal oil and hot gas. The Vyncke service centre in Bangkok serves Thai customers in close cooperation with the offices in Kuala Lumpur and in Shanghai.
Turning to other parts of the world, Mr Tarras feels that eastern Europe is a market with significant potential – in 2004 the group Fazerles (Bulgaria) started up a Vyncke steam boiler. In western Europe the investment climate was rather slow in 2004, he admits, but at Spanolux in Belgium, Vyncke designed and built a thermal oil heater to provide high availability and reliability.
Energy plants for OSB are similar to those for particleboard. Even though investments in OSB lines will not happen to the same extent as MDF and particleboard, Vyncke – already having references in OSB – says it anticipates new orders.
Water cooling of combustion grates
“Reliability of energy plants is a prime concern, since, just like other key equipment, they are a vital link in the production chain and frequent shut-downs would disturb the entire production line,” points out Mr Tarras. “A major weakness of typical aircooled step grates is that they too frequently need to be repaired and maintained. In order to optimise the availability and also minimise maintenance cost, water-cooling is essential for any combustion grate for the wood based panel industry.”
Mr Tarras says that water cooling in step grates maintains a stable temperature on the combustion grate, which has advantages. “For instance, there will be less expansion and therefore less friction and wear, ash trough fall is reduced to an absolute minimum, maintenance costs are significantly lower and the lifetime significantly higher.”
A major added advantage, he claims, is that the combustion air serves no cooling function and can therefore be optimally controlled, resulting in remarkably good combustion and so extremely low emissions.
“As a result of the fuel flexibility and low emissions, Vyncke combustion systems have been selected for several ‘green energy’ (CHP plants) projects in Europe using  emolition timber as fuel to produce steam and power,” says the sales manager.
Vyncke says it operates on the forefront where innovation is an ongoing process. In the field of combustion technology, the company has developed the Hybrid Stepgrate, in addition to the well-known Dynamic Watercooled Stepgrate (DWS). This is claimed to have the advantages of the DWS with an additional feature: the post-combustion zone.
It is said to be better for very wet fuels. The main combustion area, as well as the side collectors, are water cooled. The post-combustion area is air cooled to ensure complete burn-out.
Cogeneration and heating
“Power shortages and increasing interest in green electricity have made electricity plants and cogeneration (steam and electricity) very viable options,” points out Mr Tarras.We recently commissioned a cogeneration plant for Balcas (11.5MWth + 2.7MWe) in Northern Ireland. The tail-end type steam boiler is a unique innovation in the field of biomass. Several wood and biomass fired power plants, mainly in Europe, are under construction.” An example is Holz Dammers Moers, from Germany, which selected a small cogeneration project from Vyncke.
The wood processing industry, such as flooring and furniture, is also profiting from wood fired heaters. For this sector the company developed a thermal oil heater, suited to combustion of sanding dust, although the combustion of larger wood particles and other types of biomass is also possible.
Dare Global, Asia Dekor and Vöhringer, all leading producers of flooring in China, installed several thermal oil heaters, using sanding dust as fuel. “The savings on  conventional energy sources, such as fuel oil, are enormous,” says Mr Tarras. “It also combines the best of all worlds; whereas the design is 100% European, we source  globally to guarantee competitive prices to our customers. To ensure reliability of the system, all critical components originate from well-known European manufacturers.”
Biomass is a clean form of energy and contributes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. International organisations and governments recognise this fact and offer various forms of incentives.

Globalisation and consolidation are much-used words these days in every industrial sector and the panel manufacturing industry is no exception as large corporations flex their muscles in overseas markets.
Thus we see European-based companies buying existing mills, building new ones or entering into joint ventures, notably in eastern Europe and Asia, but also in Latin America.
However, with their vast home market, the North American panel producers are less evident in other parts of the world, although there is a very notable exception. To give you a clue, it is the one which is hardest to spell. You’ve guessed, I am sure. We speak of the Weyerhaeuser Company.
Headquartered in Federal Way, Washington, US, the company is a major player in the North American wood products industry and owns extensive forestlands there and elsewhere. Founded in 1900, today the company can boast of annual sales of US$22.7bn and currently employs about 55,000 people in 18 countries.
Worldwide,Weyerhaeuser, as one of the largest forest owners in the world, owns, licenses or leases more than 38 million acres of timberlands in North America, Australia, New Zealand and Uruguay.
Weyerhaeuser Forestlands International was founded in 1995 and manages about 600,000 acres of timberlands in joint operating interests in Australia, New Zealand and Uruguay.
To use a clothing market analogy, Weyerhaeuser’s entry into Europe was by the ready-to-wear, rather than tailor-made, route when it bought fellow US-based company Willamette Industries after a drawnout hostile takeover battle, which it finally won in February 2002.
This not only brought Weyerhaeuser the large North American Willamette forestry, paper and wood products business, but also a European operation comprising three mills in the composite panels industry – two MDF and one particleboard.
Prior to that takeover,Willamette had a turnover of around US$4bn,Weyerhaeuser US$15bn; and Weyerhaeuser had no involvement in panel manufacturing in Europe.
But to put that recent history into perspective, we have to go back rather further, to the establishment of a European MDF mill by probably the most famous name in that business, the Medford Corporation, which launched the Medite brand on an unsuspecting and uninitiated world in the mid-1970s with its mill in Medford, Oregon in the US.
It is difficult to realise now that only 20 years ago MDF was an acronym which meant nothing to most people – nor indeed did the full version, ‘medium density fibreboard’.
Many regarded it as an unnecessary invention when they had particleboard and plywood with which they were perfectly happy (in their ignorance) and which they had been using for many years by then.
Undaunted by such scepticism, Medite built a 150,000m3 MDF manufacturing plant in Clonmel, Eire (the Republic of Ireland) which opened its doors in September 1983. At the time, this was one of the world’s biggest MDF plants and prior to that opening, western European total MDF capacity stood at only 145,000m3. A brave move indeed, then. Or, as it transpired, a far-sighted one.
Geoff Rhodes, marketing and sales director of Weyerhaeuser Europe (and formerly of Medite Europe and Willamette Europe), who could arguably be called ‘Mr MDF’ for his enormous enthusiasm for, and contribution to, the promotion of the product to an often sceptical audience over the years, remembers it well.
While working for the Canadian sales agency, Seaboard International, in London in 1976, Mr Rhodes obtained the first British order for Medite, imported from Medford in the US. “This was a product with many advantages but a market had to be created,” he says. “We had a pioneering spirit and 30 years later we’re still pushing just as hard and still finding new markets and applications.”
The Medite mill in Clonmel is still one of Europe’s strongest MDF brands and has moved on from that first Washington Iron Works (WIW) multi-opening press.
The mill installed its first continuous press line in 1993. This was a Dieffenbacher CPS unit, 20.6m in length and 2.5m wide, which was installed specifically to give thin board capacity, down to 3mm thickness.
Until 2001/2, the WIW and Dieffenbacher presses ran side by side but then Willamette purchased a second Dieffenbacher continuous line and mothballed the WIW press.
The total MDF capacity of the Clonmel site is now 400,000m3 a year and all production is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified, as the Irish forest resource itself is certified as sustainably managed.
In the late 1990s,Willamette, then owners of Medite, looked to expand their European operations and searched for a suitable mill to acquire with a good quality, sustainable and abundant wood resource.
“When Willamette bought Medite in Clonmel, it was only a small step for a US$4bn company, so it looked at growing its international business,” explains Mr Rhodes. “We were now European MDF specialists and identified the Mediland mill in France as a good basis for the expansion of our activities – and it was for sale.”
Built by French company Seribo in the late 1980s as a testimony to its own engineering abilities and with the idea of selling MDF plants to the rest of the world, the mill had a design capacity of 140,000m3 (but was producing only 70,000m3) from a Pagnoni multi-daylight press line.
It was then bought by a diverse Belgian industrial entrepreneurial group in the early 90s, purely as an investment.Willamette bought it from that company in 1998.
“Mediland had a good geographical position, in south west France in the Landes de Gascogne for more southern European markets such as Iberia – and it was a long way from Clonmel so expanded our market,” says Mr Rhodes.
Willamette invested in the plant, improving fibre handling, pressing and finishing and maximised the potential of the press, achieving 160-170,000m3 output today.
There are no overlaying facilities, with the emphasis being on the Medite approach of making specialist grades of ‘raw’ board.
Not content with this addition to its portfolio of mills,Willamette then had the opportunity, in 1999, to acquire another mill utilising the same French forest resource, but this time making particleboard – a new departure for the European operation.
The mill is located in Linxe, 30km from Mediland, and was already producing a well-respected brand of particleboard, Darbo, under family ownership.
It again had a Dieffenbacher continuous press, with a planned extension that the original owners had not carried out.
“Willamette completed those plans, extending the press from 33m to 42m and investing US$23m to increase the capacity from 250,000m3 a year to 430,000m3. We also invested heavily in overlaying, installing a Dieffenbacher short-cycle press line with annual capacity of 100,000m3,” says Mr Rhodes. The work, at what is now know as Weyerhaeuser Darbo SAS, was completed in early 2002.
The Darbo mill produces standard grade and moisture-resistant particleboard as well as flooring grade tongued and grooved (T&G) board and those melamine-faced panels.
Readers will now realise that the combined capacity of the Medite, Mediland and Darbo mills is just under one million m3. To be as precise as one can: 970,000m3 a year.
So to bring our story up to date, we now have Weyerhaeuser Europe Ltd with its Medite brand MDF produced in Clonmel, Ireland;Weyerhaeuser Mediland SAS producing MDF in Morcenx, France; and Weyerhaeuser Darbo SAS producing particleboard in Linxe, France.
The sales offices for Europe are located in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England and at Roermond in the Netherlands, complementing the French sales office, which is based in Morcenx. All the European businesses come under the European Composite Panels Business sector of parent Weyerhaeuser, which also has offices in Brussels.
“We have three stand-alone brands [in Europe] and, from a marketing standpoint, had to present them as distinct brands but under the Weyerhaeuser banner – it was a challenge for us in maintaining a consistent approach to the market,” says Mr Rhodes.
“Commercially it has been very important to have specialist grades of MDF, such as flame-retardant, moisture-resistant and exterior and we can expect increasing growth in these markets.
“We have been producing exterior grade for 16 years now and are one of the few producers of it. Several of the many shopfronts in the UK made of Medite Exterior date back nearly 15 years and are still looking good.We are also producing the latest lightweight boards, following the investment in the Medite line in 2001/2.
“We also have complementary products from the two factories because Medite can produce down to 3mm thickness, while Mediland can make 50mm and above due to its Pagnoni press.”
The Medite mill, together with its standard MDF production, produces Medite 313 for use in humid conditions, Medite FR flame-retardant panels used in many prestigious building projects, Medite Exterior for external signs, shopfronts, fascias and mouldings, Medite ZF (zero added formaldehyde) for use particularly in museums and laboratories, and Medite FQ (flooring quality), a high density moisture-resistant panel for laminate flooring manufacturers. Medite Lite has a density of only 600kg/m3 and is the latest addition to the Medite range.
The mill offers Mediland LP for finely detailed work, Mediland M1 flame retardant, Mediland UL lightweight panel (550kg/m3), Mediland MH moisture resistant and Mediland MC. This last is a panel made from Landes region pine with highly refined fibres for delicate routing and overlaying with PVC foils, or lacquering.
Darbo also has its own range of branded particleboard products. These include Darbopan standard grade, Darbobati intended for areas of short exposure to humidity, Darbodal T&G panel, and Darbodeco overlaid with decorative melamine paper on both sides. A complementary product to Darbodeco is Darbochan edging strips.
Of course the company still has to face the strong competition in the market like everybody else and Mr Rhodes is the first to admit that things have not been easy in recent years. “Since 2001, the general value of the MDF market has fallen away due to over-capacity,” he points out. “The industry has had to get through the installation of three million m3 in the early 2000’s when decisions were made that resulted in a  consumption of around 7.5 to 8 million m3 facing a capacity of 11.5 to 12 million m3.
“Even with double-digit percentage consumption growth, we could still see overcapacity, so millions of euros have been lost over the last four years or so. The industry [in Europe] overall lost around 50% of its previously established value of production and by early 2005, we had only recovered about half of that value – the whole European MDF industry has been trading at a real loss.”
Mr Rhodes feels that the market at the end of 2004 was probably reaching 11 to 12 million m3 “So maybe in 2005 we will finally get it back into balance,” he suggests.
“The European industry hasn’t learnt to make investment decisions in a coordinated fashion because it is so fragmented. Maybe there is something to be learnt about the penalty which has to be paid for those kinds of decisions when they affect capacity so strongly. Those who made investment decisions in 2000 needed to realise that it could be an extended payback. But I am sure that MDF is a product that will continue to grow in usage and has much more technical potential.”

Since the two German companies Holtec and HFHN formed a strategic alliance a few short years ago, they have completed three joint projects in the wood preparation area of panel mills. One of their latest projects involved the supply of what the companies claim is the world’s largest flaker for OSB.
“With the installation of this new OSB flaker a new, important milestone in our short company history was set,” said Wolfgang Holzer, managing director and company founder of HFHN. “When we founded the company in 2001 we had the vision to develop and build large OSB flak- ers. We started with OSB stranders at the mill of one of the west European  pioneers of the OSB industry.”
The company says the new system, con- sisting of a feeding and loading system, as well as modified batch-feeder and flaker type WZU 250 with chip evacuation and sieving, will in future replace the existing type of flaker.
“In close coordination with the client, an individual plant concept was developed for the very confined space available at the site,” said Mr Holzer. The clear requirement  of the customer was for a capacity increase of 100% over the existing machine.”
Mr Holzer said there have not been any single machines on the market which could guarantee a capacity of 40 tonnes (absolutely dry) per hour.
“In addition to a new flaker generation, a new feeding and loading concept was also necessary,” he said. The challenge was accepted jointly by Holtec and HFHN, which last year realised their biggest project to date–a complete logyard for an MDF mill in Russia.
The new system was installed in parallel to the existing line and was started without significant interruption of that line.
The cross-cut logs are fed between the two systems via an adjustable tilting belt. A hydraulically-controlled step feeder transfers the logs in parallel and aligned to the log deck in front of the batch-feeder.
“Holtec delivered the first step feeder to the customer in 1998. The concept and the advantages were convincing,” said Alexander Gebele, managing director of Holtec. “That step feeder will be a core part of the new feeding, too, in order to guaran- tee a high availability of the system.”
A special challenge was the loading of the 2,000mm-wide channel of the batch feeder. In cooperation with HFHN, Holtec developed a solution with a moveable log deck. The companies say this guarantees that the conveyor, with a cross-section of nearly two square metres, is always filled. “This is the most important condition for a continuous achievement of capacity,” said Mr Gebele.
The knife carrier disk, a core part of the machine, was equipped with a special knife system, also developed by HFHN, and the company says the quality of the strands obtained has pleased the customer with a significantly low level of fines and big, plane flakes making for a top board quality.
The batch-feeder was made by HFHN in heavy duty form at the customer’s request. The feeding of the system was effected through a two-stage slider concept.
“This allows a continuous and uninter- rupted chipping,” reported Marcus Weber, sales manager of HFHN.
“The flaker itself convinced because of its basic data: inside diameter of knife-carrier disc 2,500mm, disk width 725mm and driving power of 1,000kW. The system was sup- plied as big units and its total gross weight was approximately  100 tonnes. The large weight invests the system with a capacity for very reliable operation,” said Mr Weber.
The knife carrier disk, the core part of the machine, was equipped with a special knife system, also a further development by HFHN. The customer was convinced of the benefit of this by the quality of the strands, claimed Mr Weber.
The second installation of the new flaker generation is now being made in a new OSB mill in eastern Europe, while Mr Weber said further promising projects are currently being worked on by the two companies.