It looks as though the 21st century will be kind to the fortunes of the various wood industries. Wood is once again a fashionable material because it is renewable, recyclable and its products have low embodied energy.   Our sector must not be complacent, however, about the superiority of wood in this respect. The steel and concrete industries would point out that the elements which make their products are abundant and so renewability is irrelevant. For example, 35% of the earth is iron, 17% is silicon and 1.4% calcium. The latter two are the most important components of concrete. So there is more iron, and components for concrete, than we could ever use.   Another example is water, which is practically everywhere on earth so we do not worry that it is not renewable; it is recyclable.   From this we can learn that any material that is truly recyclable need not be renewable. The recycling of steel and glass is well developed and the recycling technologies for concrete and plastics are developing rapidly.   Therefore the unique selling point (USP) of wood may well become its low embodied energy. The embodied energy of a product is most commonly defined as the non-renewable energy required to make it - the energy needed to procure the raw materials, machining and finishing.   But will wood's low embodied energy guarantee its future success? What if there is a breakthrough in energy production, such as the development of fusion power or improvement in the efficiency of solar energy? Then the level of embodied energy will become less important and wood may lose its USP.   The concrete industry is promoting the benefits of its products by pointing out that, when combined with high thermal insulation, the high thermal mass of concrete provides thermal regulation in buildings. It is generally accepted that 80% of the energy of a building comes from its use and the other 20% is linked to its construction and demolition.   Therefore, thermal efficiency can contribute more to the environment than the choice of low-embodied-energy building materials. It would seem prudent for the wood sector to develop building systems which offer the highest thermal efficiencies; wood based panels can contribute here.   The wood sector must invest in research to develop new products so it can stay ahead of the competition from concrete and steel.  

A comfortable pair of shoes. My note book and pen. A catalogue. It may still be a few weeks off as you read this issue, but Ligna+ 2007 is approaching fast and, yes, I am getting ready to pound the halls of the Hanover Messe once again.
Apart from the shear scale of this exhibition, I am left in no doubt about its importance by many people I meet in my travels around the world. I am often told by those who have built a panel manufacturing line or new factory that it all started at Ligna.

Fusoni began life in Mexico City in 1985, moving into Europe 10 years later, and today supplies its products to markets all over the globe.   Sales and service manager Mónica Bobes is based at the company's European headquarters Llanera, in the Asturias region on the north west coast of Spain.   "Our Spanish office was opened in 1995 as part of our growth strategy and nowadays we have diversified our activities into areas such as the automotive, foundry, pastry and bakery, rotomoulding, concrete and fibreglass industries," she said.   "The main target of the company since its foundation has been to achieve success together with its customers and this close relationship has allowed us to develop, as a group, integral solutions to real problems and to maintain a continuous process of research and development.   "We are also certified to ISO standards and that certification supports our processes, equipment and procedures to guarantee consistency and reliability in our products."   The company realised there was good niche market potential for release agents in the Mexican panel manufacturing industry.   "This motivated us to develop a generic release agent for these processes and, once we entered the export market we developed other additives to increase our product portfolio," said Ms Bobes.   Fusoni says its range covers the needs of the whole panel and laminate industries, including release agents for MDF, particleboard, wet-process hardboard, doorskin production, OSB and plywood.   But it is not just in these areas that the company is active today. It also offers release agents for the paper impregnation process, wetting agents, anti-foam agents, plasticisers, anti-blocking solutions, anti-dust agents and cleaning agents.   Services offered include: technical consulting and attention by qualified personnel; development of new products according to customers' needs and the adjustment of all Fusoni products to customers' processes.   These products are all manufactured in Fusoni's factories in Spain and Mexico.   The European site supplies the Asian and European markets, while the Mexican one covers the Latin American region.   In the European market, apart from its home base of Spain, Fusoni has customers in Portugal, France, Austria, Italy, Germany, Slovakia, Romania, Poland and Turkey - in other words more or less wherever panels and related products are made.   Similarly, in Asia, markets covered include China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and India, while in Latin America, Fusoni supplies its domestic market of Mexico in addition to the US, Brazil, Argentina and Chile.   These liquid products are supplied in quantities from barrels of 200 litres to containers of 1,000 litres, or in bulk shipments.   An automated mixing system is employed, which, claims the company, ensures uniformity in each product. Where necessary, Fusoni can synthesise its own raw materials for some of its products.   The control of sludge which could block spraying equipment is another area of expertise claimed by the company. It has also removed all nonyl phenol and related harmful chemicals from its impregnation products.   An important project has also been the reduction of free formaldehyde.   "We have to be conscious that the world today is in a constant state of change and we have prepared ourselves to confront any future challenge," said Ms Bobes. "We do this by constantly updating our know-how, our team and our technologies and this has been one of the fundamental values of Fusoni, together with serious attention to environmental responsibility. We like to think that those are some of the secrets of our success."  

With 34 panel manufacturing plants in nine countries and four continents, a total production capacity of around 10 million m3 and estimated turnover of close to e1.7bn for 2006, Oporto, Portugal headquartered Sonae Indústria is always going to be at or near the top of the list of the world's panel makers. However, Sonae's ceo, Carlos Bianchi de Aguiar, is quite relaxed about that ranking. "We are not in a competition to be here or there in the league table of panel makers, we are in business to be profitable and sustainable," he said when interviewed at Sonae's UK particleboard plant in Knowsley, Liverpool in February. As far as profitability in a notoriously competitive market goes, Sonae seems to have few worries; its EBITDA margin stood at 13% for the first nine months of 2006. The company has manufacturing operations in Europe in France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the UK, and in Brazil, Canada and South Africa. These factories variously produce particleboard, MDF, OSB, hardboard, melamine faced panels and laminate flooring, as well as other value-added products. Sonae was founded in 1959 in Maia, near Oporto in northern Portugal and still retains its headquarters there. It began life as a manufacturer of high pressure decorative laminates under the Laminite brand name, which it still uses - it also still uses the multi-opening HPL press from 1959. It seems the company began an unstoppable path of expansion with its takeover of Novopan, a particleboard maker near Oporto, in 1971. This coincided with the installation of the company's first melamine surfacing line and the production of components for the furniture and interior decoration industries. In 1975, Sonae moved into the production of melamine and phenolic resins, followed by formaldehyde and urea resins in 1982. Meanwhile the company continued to expand its capacity for components and melamine surfacing. Growth by acquisition continued with the purchase of Agloma in Portugal in 1984, making Sonae portugal's leading particleboard maker. In fact, the company had excess capacity and had to export 50% of production, mainly to the UK at that time. In 1987 to '89 it bought particleboard makers Siaf and Paivopan in Portugal and, for the first time, ventured abroad to buy Spanboard's particleboard line in Coleraine, Northern Ireland to give it a foothold close to the mainland UK market. The success of this purchase really kick-started the group's international expansion, said the ceo. Under Siaf the group built a greenfield, MDF production line in Mangualde, Portugal, which started up in 1990. In 1993, things gathered pace as Tafisa of Spain joined the group, making Sonae the market leader in Iberia. The following year, Sonae started up a greenfield particleboard plant in Canada, at Lac Mégantic. In 1995, a second MDF line was installed at Mangualde and a new MDF line was built at Valladolid, Spain, in 1998. In the same year Sonae entered South Africa and Brazil, installing a particleboard mill in South Africa which started production in December 1999 and a particleboard line in Brazil, while simultaneously building its first particleboard mill in England, formally opened by His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh in mid-2000. A second MDF line was built in Brazil, also in 1999, while particleboard capacity at Lac Mégantic was also increased. Not to mention a new resin factory built in Sines, Portugal, to supply all Sonae's panel factories in Iberia. This was certainly a busy period for the group as it acquired, through Tafisa, 85% of the German-headquartered Glunz group in 2000 (an acquisition process which started in 1998), bringing with it mills in France (Isoroy) and some new products in the form of OSB, softboard and plywood. It was then that Sonae first became the world leader in wood based panels. Again in 2000, the group acquired Sappi Novoboard in South Africa, making it the largest particleboard producer in that country and increasing its range of products. Sonae now has three locations there, in George, Panbult and White River. The following year saw another new MDF line, this time at Le Creusot, and a new particleboard line at Lure (both under the Isoroy banner). Meanwhile, in Germany in September 2001, a new factory site started up at a greenfield site in Nettgau, under the Glunz name, initially producing particleboard and later, OSB. As if all this was not enough, Sonae's interests in retailing and shopping centres throughout Portugal blossomed during the 1980s. The panel and retailing interests were separated into two companies in 1991, by which time Sonae had become the largest non-financial group in its 'home' country. Later, in 2005, the group was to be reorganised again, with the de-merger of Sonae Indústria from Sonae SGPS. Telecommunications, food and non-food retail, shopping centres and services came under the SGPS banner, while Sonae Indústria got Tafisa and SIR, together covering the wood based panels and related businesses. All that acquisition and expansion activity in such a short space of time must have put considerable stress on the group as between 1999 and 2001, the company invested e1.2bn, including the Glunz acquisition, the new lines and other acquisitions, and refurbishment of some of the acquired production lines. This led to some rumours about Sonae's finances around the industry. Evidently, those rumours were unfounded. "In 2002 and 2003 the market was not one of the most brilliant in our business," admitted Mr Bianchi de Aguiar. "We and some of our competitors brought a lot of new capacity in and that led to some problems, but we were successful in taking market share at that time and 2004 saw improvement - it was not such a bad year - 2005 was good and so was 2006. "In 2004 we increased our share capital by e200m and paid the remaining debt owed to SGPS. Our finances improved and we started growth again after a period of consolidation and improvement. We coped well with the increases in costs experienced by everybody in 2006, which is a sign of the control we have over our business." After a period of consolidation and a 'breathing space' for the group during this more difficult period, Sonae again launched into a vigorous expansion phase. In 2005 it formed a joint venture with Tarkett, the Paris-headquartered global supplier of flooring in vinyl, engineered wood, parquet and laminate flooring. "Until this time, we were not being very successful in flooring and decided to get together with an expert in this field who understood sales and distribution, while Tarkett wanted to be in the full value chain from HDF manufacture to finished laminate flooring," explained Mr Bianchi de Aguiar. The joint venture is linked to Sonae's Eiweiler plant in Germany for sourcing, but sells the flooring worldwide. As part of this development, Sonae invested e60m to add a flooring line and automated warehouse and moved six million square metres of laminate flooring capacity from its Ussel plant in France to Eiweiler, creating a 25 million m2 annual capacity there. Last year, Sonae took another major step in expanding its panel business by buying three Hornitex mills from the receiver of that company for e60m for the equity, including e55m of debt at Beeskow. Hornitex had been in receivership since 2000/2001. These German mills, at Beeskow, Horn and Duisberg, brought Sonae additional capacity of 320,000m3 in MDF and 1,130,000m³ in particleboard, as well as 38MW of energy generation through biomass plants and a turnover of e69m. Sonae anticipates synergies worth around one million euros per month following the acquisition, through raw material purchasing, customer relationship management and IT integration. Why did Sonae finally decide to make this purchase after Hornitex had been in receivership for six or seven years? "Everybody started looking at buying Hornitex and talking to the receiver in around 2000 and almost all players in this industry came close," admitted Mr Bianchi de Aguiar. "The receiver listened and asked what the prospective buyers would do with the business and, as a result, did a lot of restructuring itself. But sooner or later, the company had to go to someone; the receiver had done as much as it could and so entered into negotiations for the assets, people and so on. "The locations fitted in well with our existing mills, with Beeskow close to Poland and the others close to the Netherlands and Belgium for the MDF market and so they strengthened our position in central Europe." The Horn plant brought one multi-opening and one continuous press, a direct paper printing line, melamine facing, HPL and CPL, and kitchen worktop production, while Beeskow brought two single-opening particleboard and one continuous MDF lines, plus a melamine facing line installed during the receivership period. Duisberg contributed a continuous particleboard line. "There is a lot of experience in Hornitex - especially in direct printing - and from the logistics point of view, it will save us money," said Mr Bianchi de Aguiar. "Although the plants were in receivership for some years, they were well maintained and so there is no need for massive investment - we are improving the efficiency but are not making major investments at this time. And although continuous presses came in about 20 years ago, discontinuous pressing can still be efficient in certain applications such as thicker or high-density board." Key Hornitex managers have joined the central European executive management team of Sonae. "The Hornitex design centre has become our centre of excellence for melamine papers and a permanent exhibition of developments for our central European operations," said the chief executive. Although Sonae will keep the former Hornitex brand names, in line with its general policy, it has not bought the Hornitex name as such. "We bought the assets of the business not the company itself," explained Mr Bianchi de Aguiar. "However, we always try to keep brand names where we feel it adds value to the business. For example we still have the Glunz, Isoroy and Tafisa names. People identify with product brands rather than company names." Also in 2006, the company invested e45m in a new 350,000m³ a year continuous line for particleboard at its White River site in South Africa. The existing line will be converted to produce around 70,000m³ of MDF and the new line is expected to come on stream in the second quarter of this year. South Africa is Sonae's most profitable panel market. In Canada, melamine facing capacity was increased with a Wemhöner short-cycle line in October 2006 at a total cost of e8m. Another acquisition made in 2006 was that of the Darbo particleboard line at Linxe in southwest France. This represented e30m investment in equity and e3m net debt. It brought Sonae 450,000m³ of particleboard capacity and seven million square metres of melamine facing and is being integrated into Sonae's Iberian management structure as the closest market. Interestingly, this plant was first bought from US company Weyerhaeuser by Spanish panel maker Finsa in December 2005, together with an MDF plant at Morcenx, also in France, but it decided to divest the particleboard business as not being core to its activities. Finally, 2006 saw the beginning of procedures for Sonae to purchase the remaining minority of shares in Tafisa which the group did not already own. As a result of all the acquisition and investment activity we have listed, Sonae Indústria's installed capacity grew by 82% between 1999 and 2006, going from 5.3 million to around 10 million m³. That is comprised of 6.9 million m³ of particleboard, 2.5 million m³ of MDF and 594,000m³ of OSB. More than 50% of that is transformed into value-added products by the company, including laminate flooring, melamine faced board, HPL and acoustic panels. Some plants are dedicated to valueadded production. For instance Tavannes, Switzerland, produces speciality products based on MDF, such as acoustic panels, veneered boards and architectural products, while Kaisersech in Germany not only has a multi-opening particleboard line but also makes melamine-faced particleboard components for the furniture industry. An impregnation line is also being added there. With such a widespread geographical base, how, I wondered, does the group administer the business? "We are a multi-regional company but this is a very regional business," said Mr Bianchi de Aguiar. "There are of course some global activities such as technology, information systems, human resources, but the purchase of raw materials is very regional and you have to understand each of those markets. "That's why our management board is composed of people of different nationalities - Spanish, Portuguese, Scandinavian, German and Canadian. It takes time to grow to this size and, being Portugal-based, we needed outside expertise. Having achieved that growth, we are now concentrating on people and the environment and that is an important part of the organisation. We take best practice from inside and outside the group and in terms of health and safety, for example, we aim to be the best in class in terms of compliance and expect to be among the best in terms of 'world best practices'." Several of the group mills are PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes) certified, some are FSC certified and several have ISO 14001 environmental certification, while the vast majority are certified to ISO 9001 for quality. Further certification of mills is ongoing. Sonae is also a member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), on which Mr Bianchi de Aguiar is the representative. Sonae Indústria employs around 7,000 people in 10 countries and that is a lot of people to look after. Indirect employment is estimated at 5:1, or around 35,000! Of course a business the size of Sonae's is never going to be entirely accident-free. A severe fire in Lac Mégantic's biggest panel production line last April required a full press replacement and it is not expected to be back in production until August this year. A spark in the dust extraction is believed to have initiated the fire with an explosion which damaged the structure of the building and cut off the water supply to the extinguishing system. Then a second explosion occurred in the forming area. The factory had full spark detection/extinguishiing systems, but if the water supply is cut, there is not much anyone can do. Sonae UK in Knowsley also experienced a large fire in the dry area in June 2002, resulting in a 12 week shut-down of the factory and another fire occurred there on February 20 this year (see news pages). "Innovation is an important part of our business," said the chief executive. "and that is not only in R&D. You can be innovative in many other processes too, such as in how you manage the companies, by consolidating accounts procedures, internal audits, capital investments in different regions, legal matters.We have a number of innovative initiatives to improve the performance of the organisation. But innovation is only really any good if it is for the benefit of the customer and not for its own sake. For instance we developed products with Swedwood [the industrial side of IKEA], which is a very demanding customer in terms of quality. "But our first priority is profitability - market share and profitability - and the more profitable markets are generally outside Europe today, such as Canada and South Africa.Western Europe is a mature market and we are not expecting major growth there, although there is potential in the eastern European countries. South America is a growing market too." Looking to the future, Mr Bianchi de Aguiar admits there are difficulties. "Raw material costs [wood and resins] are an uncertainty and may impact profitability, but we remain confident that underlying volume sales in our main markets will sustain our good performance. "The problem of biomass use for energy generation in western Europe is frightening, particularly in Germany where incentives to private house owners to burn wood are likely to have more effect than power generators. But in general, I think the consensus is that there is enough wood for everybody. "For now, we will be focused on the full integration of the Hornitex and Darbo acquisitions and on our investment in the new production lines in South Africa and Canada, as well as developing our joint venture with Tarkett.What is for sure is that we will be very busy!"

Use of MDI (methyl diphenyl diisocyanate) binders in OSB production can be traced back to 1985 when the first OSB mill converted to using this product, in North America. By the year 2000, according to Huntsman Polyurethanes which is one of the main producers of MDI, around 30 OSB mills globally had switched over to using this product in at least some part of their panel. Seven of those mills use MDI in both face and core layers, while the rest use it in the core layer only, often using a conventional phenol formaldehyde (PF) or melamine urea phenol formaldehyde (MUPF) resin in the face layers. Being derived from oil in a complex process with a high entry cost which does not lend itself to small-scale production, there are only a few suppliers of MDI worldwide. The main reason in the past for not utilising MDI in the face of OSB is that it is a very effective adhesive - and not just for wood. Without proper precautions, mills can find the faces of their OSB panel stuck as firmly to the press platens/belts as they are to the core layer. However, there are new ways which solve that 'sticky' problem completely, which we will come to later. Another reason can be the perceived higher cost of MDI versus PF or MUPF resins - another subject we will return to. Meanwhile, the benefits which Huntsman claims for its 'Suprasec' and 'Rubinate' MDI binders are: * Better panel moisture resistance in the field * Increased mill productivity levels * Increased wood species variety and tolerance * Potential increase in the panels' physical property performance * Increased ability to manufacture speciality products * The creation of better mill operating parameters and savings in drying, blending and pressing * Decreased blender cleaning * More cost-effective binding Following the initial success of MDI for composite wood products in the US, in the early 1990s chemical giant ICI set up its composite wood products division, within its polyurethanes division, in Europe. That polyurethanes division, together with ICI's titanium dioxide business, was bought by Huntsman, a family-owned chemical business headquartered in Houston, Texas, US, in 1999; Huntsman promptly doubled in size 'overnight'. The administrative and research and development (R&D) parts of Huntsman occupy the former ICI premises in Everberg on the outskirts of Brussels. This is also the home of Huntsman's dedicated wood team in Europe and where small-scale trials can be carried out for customers, to address their specific needs. Simon Baker is the commercial director of the composite wood products division. "Our MDI binders are primarily used in the OSB sector and this represents a significant proportion of our business in panels, although it can also be used in MDF, particleboard and lightweight wood fibre insulation products," he said. "The real advantage of MDI is the ability to create a strong bond with wood - it forms a bond with the lignin in the wood and achieves a good distribution on fibres, due partly to its low viscosity, to give a homogenous product," explained Mr Baker. "It also allows shorter press times than other resins and works at lower temperatures." Huntsman works with the major panel-making machinery manufacturers in the development of new products. "We are not just here to supply the resins. For instance we developed a special non-standard resin for the new Siempelkamp insulation board line and that is a good example of what we are trying to do," continued Mr Baker. "We believe the wood sector has a very bright future. It is a sustainable construction method and offers good carbon capture to help combat global warming. We want to help the industry to grow and to support that growth through the development of new products. "The wood industry generally needs to push its positive message - it is a great material. The Wood Panel Industry Federation in the UK and the European Panel Federation are doing their best for the sector, but we all need to do more." Examples of panel products other than OSB where MDI has been used are to be found in specialist grades of MDF and particleboard, such as for exterior use, in so-called zero formaldehyde boards and in fire retardant panels. However, these are never likely to be big volume markets - that area is likely to be dominated by OSB for the foreseeable future. Huntsman Polyurethanes does however supply polyurethane glues for I-beam manufacture in the US as an alternative to resorcinol and is interested to see how this business develops in Europe. An advantage for MDI in such applications is that it is colourless, where glue lines can be very visible with other resins such as PF. "We account for less than 1% of glue used in the wood industry," admits Mr Baker, who also recognises that the price of MDI is higher than competitor resins. "It is if you just compare the price [per litre], but in terms of cost of use, you have lower dosage, shorter press times. You must truly understand the economics - we are not going for a commodity market but the higher specification market." So what are the often-cited downsides to MDI and Huntsman's answers to those criticisms? I asked Mr Baker. First, that it sticks to press platens/belts. "Historically, some mills applied sacrificial paper faces to the panels which were sanded off after pressing, but for some time we have offered a liquid agent which we developed and which is spray-applied to the platens/belts before pressing. This has had a big uptake by users of continuous presses," he said. Secondly that MDI is a 'dangerous' chemical to humans, potentially causing respiratory problems and sensitisation. "I will answer that in two ways: Firstly, MDI, like any product, needs to be treated in the right way and following the advice we give, then there is no reason why there should be any risk; secondly, We take our environmental health and safety very seriously and there is a team of industrial hygiene specialists who go out to customers to ensure they understand how to manage not only the resins, but also dust and other by-products of panel production. They discuss storage of MDI, handling and blending." The third 'accusation' is that lack of tack is a problem with MDI as the mat does not hold together well before the press. "Lack of tack can be a problem on some of the older multi-daylight particleboard presses which we are addressing through R&D. It can be an issue, though not really on continuous lines, and we are close to finding a solution for those older lines as well. "MDI has some very real advantages, particularly in niche and demanding applications," said Mr Baker. There are of course ways to achieve resins which do not contribute to formaldehyde emissions other than using MDI, such as the use of formaldehyde catchers and so-called E0 resins, but the disadvantages of E0 resins can be loss of production speed and relatively high resin loadings. A combination of these resins with special grades of MDI in a hybrid system can apparently be a solution to compensate for production and strength loss. Another group - the bioresins - also offer a formaldehyde-free bonding system. "It is interesting to see these other [bio] resins out there but the question is can they be taken from laboratory scale to industrial scale?" asked Mr Baker. There are other panel products which need bonding, but do not use wood. Agricultural fibre-based boards are notoriously difficult to stick together due to wax in the case of wheat straw, for instance. "We have had a lot of success in improving the technology and have made panels from a wide variety of materials, and have done a lot of work with Compak [a specialist in straw-based board manufacture]," said Mr Baker. Huntsman has three global production centres for its MDI: Rotterdam for the European market; Louisiana for the US, Canadian and Mexican markets; and Shanghai for Asia.

As the successor to ACM Wood Chemicals, Chimar Hellas has retained all the intellectual property, technology rights and R&D facilities belonging to the former ACM Group, maintaining and expanding a tradition in the provision of resin technologies and services which began in 1977. Mrs Effy Markessini, one of the founders of ACM and president of Chimar Hellas, says that throughout its history, the company and its predecessors have invested in research and development (R&D) as the flagship of its business activities. She is a polymer chemist and has headed up the companies' R&D for some years. "We always maintained close contact with the customers, anticipating their needs, tracing solutions respecting the environment, protecting human health and supporting sustainability," she said. "Our story is about a company staying at the forefront of developments throughout the world." Chimar Hellas SA concluded technology licensing contracts with the former ACM production plants, as well as the previous licensees of the ACM group, and has continued to focus on R&D in the field of resins and resin additives. Mrs Markessini said the company is a provider of innovative industrial technology for the resin and wood based panel industries in all continents, offering manufacturing and research expertise in chemical products and processes for producing particleboard, fibreboard, plywood, oriented strand board (OSB) and laminating papers. "Chimar develops, in house, and licenses know-how for the production of formaldehyde- based resins, laminating syrups and resin additives as well as for their application in the manufacturing of panels," said the president. "We also develop processes which enhance the productivity and profitability of manufacturing resins and wood panels, as well as being active in the engineering works for the construction, start-up and operation of plants producing formaldehyde, urea formaldehyde pre-condensate (UFC), formaldehyde resins and resin additives. "We also continuously focus on 'green' chemicals and technologies, fulfilling ecoefficiency principles." In terms of R&D, Chimar claims to cover all phases, including lab scale testing, everyday problem solving and final stages of development and industrial implementation, thus creating value from research results. "Our R&D results are properly protected, via patenting or other methods, disseminated and licensed worldwide," said Mrs Markessini. "Most of the technology we develop is patented and has been applied in plants located in more than 31 countries so far." Chimar owns a well-equipped chemical laboratory for advanced synthesis and analysis of resins and chemicals and it is there where elaborate trials are performed by its scientists and where ideas take shape to form new products. The company also offers wood panel production and performance testing in an accompanying technical laboratory and has pilot scale installations for resin making. However, Mrs Markessini said Chimar'ssuccess lies mainly in its people. "It has a strong team of highly skilled researchers, technical and administrative support personnel. These include chemists, chemical engineers, forest and petroleum scientists and technologists, computer engineers, economic and legal advisors and multi-lingual personnel with managerial skills. These staff are on call at any moment and offer services to customers worldwide," she said. The technical support personnel of Chimar are said to have a unique experience in resin and wood panel production, as well as in transferring new technology into the resin and panel industry, having given on-site technical assistance to numerous formaldehyde resin, particleboard, MDF, plywood, OSB and melamine impregnated board plants. "The international experience of the engineering and technical support personnel in the construction and installation of formaldehyde, resin and resin additive plants is also important," said the company president. Dimitris Alexandropoulos, a chemist and Chimar's managing director, leads the company's industrial support, customer contacts and plant installations. In addition to the range of resins already mentioned, Chimar also carries out research on resins from renewable resources as well as on panels produced from agricultural residues. Resins include: tannin, lignin from paper production, pulping spent liquor, pyrolysis oil (bio-oil) and extraction or liquefaction products of agricultural and forestry residues. These include cashew nut shell liquid, liquified wood, liquified olive stones and soy. Agricultural wastes include mainly straw from wheat, rice, barley, or corn. Apart from the range of resins for wood based panels, Chimar also offers technologies for resin additives such as hardeners, formaldehyde scavengers and special additives such as fire retardants and recycling agents. Chimar says that the wood panels produced using its tailor-made resin technology conform to the most stringent European, American and Japanese standards and that even special grades such as the Super E0 grade (F****) according to JIS A 1460 can be obtained - and that such resin systems are currently being used commercially in Australia. It also claims to save its customers money. The GNOSSI (General Non-destructive On-line SpectroScopic Interpretation) process offered by Chimar, which is based on near infra-red spectroscopy, was developed for the in-situ monitoring of formaldehyde-based resin synthesis as well as for raw material and final product evaluation. It is also applicable in paper impregnation processes (WBPI Feb/March 2002). Modern computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software is applied by Chimar for the modelling and optimising of specific production units of formaldehyde and resin plants such as reactors, mixing vessels and heat exchangers; as well as areas of board producing plants such as chip blenders, dryers and blow lines. Chimar Hellas is also involved in research projects - either internally funded or partly supported by the European Commission - and implemented in cooperation with established European research/industrial organisations in the sector. Its aim, it says, is to develop and promote innovative products and technologies, while cooperating with the best partners. The project results are properly protected and disseminated worldwide through the international network of Chimar licensees. The company has experience from its participation in 22 European-funded projects and in three scientific networks. Mrs Markessini outlined the future for the company: "After Chimar had concluded technology-licensing contracts with the former ACM production plants, as well as the previous licensees of the group, it strove to maintain its global presence and strong R&D in the field of resins, resin additives and wood panel production, with the aim of regaining growth by attracting new licensees through the provision of state-of-the-art products and services". In 2005, Chimar concluded a licensing contract with the Mexican company Duraplay de Parral SA de CV, which produces particleboard and plywood (both exterior and interior grade). Board finishing lines and a formaldehyde and resin plant are also part of the Duraplay industrial complex. The introduction of Chimar resin technology is expected to bring savings in production cost and at the same time improve the formaldehyde emission performance. In 2006, Chimar also undertook a resin plant turnkey project for the Argentinian company Faplac SA, a member of the Arauco group. Faplac produces resins and UFC and the introduction of Chimar's resin plant and reactor technology was designed to improve product quality while increasing productivity. For the future, Chimar says it will continue to offer global services for plant installation for the production of formaldehyde, UFC, resins and resin additives. It further plans to expand and diversify its activities by exploiting renewables and other routes and by opening up new markets, such as China. There are also plans under way to enhance the company's infrastructure in terms of equipment, facilities and use of information technology tools. "Chimar differs from its competitors in that it sells technology and does not produce products, in contrast to the larger manufacturers in this field," explained Mrs Markessini. "We provide a broad range of product technologies and support services as opposed to independent consulting on specific topics. We also focus on green technologies such as board recycling, strawboard and the introduction of natural resins, while we are among the first companies to have reached F**** board production, even for the most difficult thin MDF. "We are a small, flexible company, able quickly to respond to customer needs."

When the Tirolean farming family Egger decided to go into sawmilling, it started on a journey which has taken it into the top echelons of panel makers today. The construction of the company's first particleboard mill at St Johann, one hour's drive from Salzburg amid the breathtaking mountain scenery of the Austrian Tirol region, began in 1960, producing commercial panels the following year. One truck-load per day left the factory in those days. Today Egger has 15 (almost 16) production plants all over Europe and claims a sales presence in all global markets; and now 700 truck-loads of panels leave Egger's European factories factory every day. The company has four plants in Austria (St Johann, Wörgl, Leoben and Unterradlberg); six in Germany (Wismar, Gifhorn, Bünde, Marienmünster, Bevern and Brilon), two in France (Ramberviller and Rion Des Landes), two in the UK (Barony in Scotland and Hexham in England), one in Russia (Shuya) and the 16th under construction in Romania, due to start production at the end of of this year. Panel products manufactured include particleboard, MDF and OSB and Egger has extensive value-adding facilities too, from continuous laminate (CPL) to melamine faced panels, to laminate flooring, to finished furniture components. The group employs 5,100 people in total and in 2005/6, its unconsolidated turnover was e1.85bn (e1.29bn consolidated). Total panel production for all the Egger factories is 5.2 million m³/year. While we are talking figures, Egger has seen an 89% increase employment in the 10 years 1995-2005, coupled with a 157% increase in turnover and 126% increase in production capacity during the same period. The three principle product areas for the company are Decorative, Construction and Flooring/Retail, forming what the company calls its "Brand House". "All our products are based on a natural, sustainable raw material - wood - and our business philosophy is based on the four 'I's, said Huber Höglauer, head of marketing for the Egger group. "These are International presence, Innovation, Integration and Identification. "Under 'International', we manufacture in all the major economic regions of Europe. We concentrate on Europe but with a sales presence globally. Our investment in Russia and in Romania is part of this concentration on a wider Europe. "The second 'I', Innovation, is the key to our sustained success. For instance, we are the first to invest in mass production of a lightweight board with a paper honeycomb core called Eurolight. It is an 'old' product basically but our approach is new, in production technology, processing and working with others in a network," said Mr Höglauer. But we will come back to Eurolight later. "The third 'I', integration, means that we have forwards-integration, producing furniture components for example, and backwards integration, having our own power plants, at Wismar and Unterradlberg. These use production waste for energy generation. "Identification, the fourth 'I', means we want 'Egger' to be the company and name of choice in our industry." The location of the company's plants reflects the markets which each is designed to serve. For instance, the latest Romanian plant is close to Ukraine, southeast Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Bulgaria and Turkey, while the Unterradlberg unit is in the heart of Europe and close to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Austria and Italy. "This all reduces the logistics costs," said Mr Höglauer. "Also a lot of European furniture producers [Egger's customers] are moving production to the east of Europe." Investments by the group in the past two years alone are impressive. In Summer 2005, Egger started building the Shuya facility in Russia, 300km northeast of Moscow, as its 15th panel production plant, to make 250,000m³/year of particleboard. The official opening came in May 2006. Also in 2006, a new, high-performance prefabricated elements line was opened at the Bünde plant, capable of producing, in combination with the lines at St Johann, up to 600,000 furniture components per week. These can be drilled, edged or grooved to customer order and some are even supplied to customers in Asia, when quality is more important than mere quantity. Mat heating was added to the Brilon MDF continuous press line last year, leading to a 30% increase in capacity; a new direct printing line and laminate flooring plant were also added to that site. Another major project begun in 2006, and due to begin trial production as you read this, was the brand new continuous particleboard production line at Hexham in the northeast of England. This existing Egger subsidiary company was the subject of a £100m (e150m) investment, comprising a brand new area of land adjacent to the existing site and a 48x2.6m Siempelkamp ContiRoll press line with a production capacity of 2,000m³/day. The project began in April 2006 on an empty site and was due to start up in April 2007. Again started in 2006 was that Romanian particleboard plant on an 80ha site at Radauti in the Suceava region, close to the Ukraine border. "Currently we are seeing the results of an ongoing e500m-plus investment strategy in the Egger group as a whole," said Mr Höglauer. In terms of the company's approach to the market, he is clear about where Egger wants to be: "We are not the cheapest and we don't want to be. We offer quality and service. For instance we can supply special orders within a few days from our component plant in St Johann, even to the UK". The Eurolight innovation Egger began the development of a completely new product line about three years ago and this resulted in the start-up of trial production on its Eurolight line at the end of August last year. Panels were being delivered to customers in September. Eurolight is a frameless sandwich-construction panel made up of two thin particleboard (or possibly MDF) faces, with a 15mm cell-size paper honeycomb core, in a range of thicknesses from 15 to 100mm. 'That is nothing new' I hear you say, and that is true - the panel concept is probably 50 years old. What makes Eurolight unique is the fact that it is made on a specially-designed continuous press line with a possible daily output capacity in excess of 1,000m3 and in master panels of 5610x2070mm, rather than an essentially hand-made product. But the question is why did Egger want to develop such a product. Eurolight product manager Manfred Riepertinger explained: "We have seen a lot of increases in wood raw material and energy costs and they are continuing to rise," he pointed out. "The only way out is to reduce the weight of the board and thus the content of these expensive commodities. "At first we looked at reducing the density of normal boards, thinking that would offer the best solution, but reducing the density of fibreboard or particleboard just reduces the physical characteristics of the boards and you end up with something like insulation board, which does not have the required physical characteristics for a furniture board. We realised the only way to produce a lightweight board with the required characteristics was a honeycomb construction with thin particleboard or MDF faces." Egger went for the paper honeycomb because: "It is light, strong - especially in bending strength - cheap and it is a natural product," said Mr Riepertinger. Six main factors were considered: * low weight meaning reduced energy and raw material consumption in both manufacturing and logistics and simpler handling during installation/assembly * optimum stability with optimum bending strength through the sandwich construction with high density faces and a shear resistant hexagonal core structure * maximum design flexibility with a coordinated range of Egger decors for surfaces and edgings and the creation of free-form designs * a versatile application spectrum in partitions and exhibition fittings, kitchens, living areas, bedrooms, offices, shelving and tables * ergonomic factors - with a European flat-pack weight limit of 25kg per package and with 40-50% of the furniture market being flat-pack. This is a lightweight panel. * Finally, there is the factor of increased mobility. The furniture becomes easy to install and dismantle, convenient to transport and thus offers no problem when moving house. "But the main driver originally was raw material costs," said Mr Riepertinger. Egger first presented Eurolight at the ZOW exhibition in Bad Salzuflen, Germany, in 2006 and it generated a lot of interest, which only increased when production started six months later. "We had approximately 600 customer contacts six months before we even had a panel to offer," said Mr Riepertinger. The first step in developing Eurolight production was to make the frame-less board itself. Space was created in one of the factory buildings at St Johann by closing down two laminate flooring lines which were no longer required following investments in new lines at Brilon and Wismar. The 100m-long production line has three infeed lines, rather like a short-cycle press line. The honeycomb core, following stretching open and heat treating in a hot air oven to stabilise it and prevent spring-back, is laid out on the centre line, then one surface panel, of 3, 4 or 8mm thickness, moves through a glue coater which applies a two-part cold-setting PUR glue to the top surface. The panel then passes to a turner which turns it over on top of the honeycomb core. This one-sided honeycomb panel is then turned over and the second surface panel is glued and turned over onto the honeycomb from the other side of the line in the same way as the first surface panel. The honeycomb is wider and longer than the facing panels to allow for movement and subsequent trimming. The sandwich then passes through the 34m-long continuous press developed over three years and built by Siempelkamp subsidiary Siempelkamp Handling Systems (SHS). The upper and lower endless press 'platens' are made up of a number of sanded aluminium elements which travel around rollers at either end of the press just like the more familiar steel belt of a continuous press. They are not, however, heated since the process uses a cold-set glue. The panel is then trimmed to remove the excess honeycomb. That is phase one; the continuous production of a frame-less honeycomb panel, which can then be cut to the required sizes on the large new Schelling angular saw. Cooperation with German machinery maker Homag produced the second production line for Eurolight, alongside the press line. This cuts to size, and then inserts, particleboard framing into the edges of the panels, if required by the customer. "We could see that we would not be able only to supply frameless panels, especially with thin surface layers," said Mr Riepertinger. The underside of the panel face edges are rebated and the framing is glued and pressed into the edge of the panel, all in a continuous process. Framing is either 10mm, 38mm or 65mm wide, depending on the fixings required during furniture production. However, some customers require finished furniture solutions and this is where Egger cooperated with two other companies to form the 'Lightweight Network'. This is an information and development platform to offer the furniture maker a service to develop and inform them about new lightweight construction applications. This cooperation has its own lightweight.network logo, but the three companies each act separately. This was initially formed by the alliance of Egger, Hettich - the well-known supplier of furniture fixings - and Rehau which specialises in edgings and these three companies worked together to create solutions for lightweight furniture components, complete with fixings and edgings. A major Hettich contribution to the new technology was the development of a plastic dowel insert. This two-part hollow dowel is inserted into the panel from either face and glue is injected into it. The glue spreads onto the top and bottom layers' inside surfaces thus fixing the dowel into place. Fixings can then be screwed into the dowel. Meanwhile the Innofix plastic profile has been developed to seal the cut cross-section of a Eurolight panel when a sink aperture or cooker hob aperture is cut. The lightweight.network is not a 'closed' organisation but will welcome other companies which have a contribution to make in the future and is currently in discussions with several potential partners. It exhibited independently at this year's ZOW in February for the first time, where it showed a variety of solutions for fixings, fittings and edgings. It will also exhibit at the Ligna exhibition. The St Johann factory has two Homag lines for postforming and a Hymmen continuous press for applying CPL faces. "Anything you can do to a normal particleboard or MDF panel, you can do to Eurolight," said Mr Riepertinger. This opens it up to the full range of hundreds of decor options in the Egger range. Eurolight offers a lightweight furniture component in any thickness from 15mm to 100mm and it is perhaps in the thicker end of that range that the real significance of the product can be seen. Now furniture designers can make 'chunky' designs of furniture and kitchen worktops - fashionable concepts at the moment - without having to worry about the weight. This is very much a new twist on an old idea. A much more practical twist, too, with continuous industrial production opening up new possibilities for Eurolight. Farmers to innovative panel pioneers for furniture makers in 46 years. That's not bad progress.

When Coillte threw its hat into the ring of potential buyers for Weyerhaeuser's Medite manufacturing facility at Clonmel, Co Tipperary, it created a real stir throughout the country's forest products industry. The opportunities - and, it's fair to say, challenges - the proposed acquisition presented, were, without doubt, the main topic of conversation. When the Competition Authority gave it the green light and Medite Europe Ltd came into the fold on November 27, 2006, Coillte became a e300m turnover company. Already sole owner of the Smartply OSB business in neighbouring Waterford, the acquisition gave Coillte a e175m turnover presence in the wood based panels sector. It's a far cry from 1989 when Coillte was first established and 97% of revenue came from log sales. In the early 1990s it set up a joint venture with Louisiana-Pacific (LP) to produce OSB. "We had a situation where the quaysides of a number of ports in Ireland were lined with pulpwood being exported, which indicated that there was a need for another major pulpwood-using industry on the island," said Gerry Egan, group director of corporate affairs. In 2002, when LP began to consolidate its business in the US, Coillte bumped its 35% share in the Waterford facility to 100% and Smartply Europe Ltd was born. Smartply's strong market position in the UK and Ireland provided Coillte with the confidence to take advantage of another result of US consolidation - Weyerhaeuser's Clonmel MDF facility. "We were strongly of the view that there was merit in it being in Irish hands," said Mr Egan. "While Irish sawmills are indigenous, the major panels businesses were multi-national. Rather than look for more inward investment, here was an opportunity to consolidate the indigenous forest products industry." The purchase wasn't universally welcomed, with some concerns expressed by sawmillers who were alarmed at the prospect of their primary log supplier strengthening its grip on another link in the supply chain - the market for wood chips. "We felt that Coillte's acquisition of the business would be good for the long-term strategic development of the Irish forest products industry," said Mr Egan. "It could have been bought by an overseas company which undoubtedly would have been very committed to the Medite business but might not have looked at the bigger picture to the same extent we would. We were disappointed, but not surprised, that not everyone saw it the same way." The acquisition process has been pretty gruelling and Coillte is now taking a long, deep breath - of between 6-12 months - before deciding where it goes from here in terms of Smartply and Medite's individual and/or joint development. Coillte itself, however, has already implemented an internal reorganisation. The group now consists of three business divisions, each with its own managing director. Coillte Forest Division, headed by Tim Crowley, is the forest management arm while Coillte Enterprise Division is the venture arm. Under the guidance of Gerry Britchfield this division manages the group's property interests. An increasingly important issue for this division is that of energy. "On one side of the equation, Coillte is now a major energy user," said Mr Egan, "but on the other, we have the largest solid biomass resource on the island and we've already developed a number of wind farm locations. The third arm is the Panel Products Division and within that there is, again, a certain hiatus. The incumbent managing director, John Dwyer, who spearheaded the acquisition of Medite, will soon be retiring. "We've advertised internationally, which in itself is a statement of intent and signifies that we want the best possible person to take over John's role on the basis that it's now such a substantial part of the overall group business," said Mr Egan. And he's resisting the temptation to second-guess what may be around the corner in terms of any manufacturing synergies. "The new managing director will have his or her own views about the best way the combination of businesses should be run. "The technology in both places is different: there's a continuous press at Medite and a multi-daylight press at Smartply. They are substantial, well-run businesses in their own right with sophisticated manufacturing processes and any decisions that are taken should be fully informed after having managed them for a period of time," he said. One fundamental change that has already been implemented by John Dwyer, however, is the primary customer contact, which has been integrated. Geoff Rhodes, formerly sales and marketing director of Weyerhaeuser, is now marketing and business development director across both brands, while Andrew Macdonald, formerly sales and marketing director at Smartply, is sales director across the two. "We had a situation where nine out of the top 10 customers were customers of both Smartply and Medite," said Mr Egan. "They wanted to be able to buy more than one panel from us but only have one order process. "We are now going through the process of sharing and understanding the intricacies of Medite's MDF and Smartply's OSB business and familiarising ourselves with all the positive aspects that we can bring to the market," said Mr Rhodes. "MDF and OSB continue to be attractive and growing components of the international panel products markets, so the combination of these two strong brands brings a really solid supply out of Ireland, all certified by FSC." The continuity on the human level has been a real bonus for Coillte. While Smartply and, particularly, Medite have changed ownership more than once in their histories, the key personnel have remained in position, building up a wealth of experience and world-class expertise. Coillte chief executive David Gunning: "Coillte Panel Products now encompasses two outstanding brands which, from a UK and Ireland point of view, position us right at the top in supply of MDF and OSB". "To be able to fulfil our customers' demand with an outstanding product and to be able to trace it back to a fully certified forest that we own and operate is a unique set of capabilities that we want to leverage as much as we can. "We're not short of markets at the moment - everything we produce we sell," he continued. "What we would like to do is put increasing emphasis on higher value products with higher value propositions to our customers. "We see growth opportunities for MDF and OSB which, in turn, provides opportunities for our own raw material and for private forestry," he added. "We need to complete our strategy review process in order to determine our next steps and we will be quite deliberate in taking that time. "Both Smartply and Medite are well thought of by our customers and they provide us with the fuel for growth."

One of the things for which Belgium has long been famous (other than very special chocolates) is its textile industry. Tourists may also be familiar with the fine lace which can be found for sale in every town. Early in the 20th century, flax was a major crop since it provided the raw material for that textile industry. Part of its preparation involved separating the fibre from the husk by a rotting process. Flax farmers around Harelbeke, home town of the Vyncke family, used the river Leie to provide the water for this process, but the rotting was accelerated by using hot water and steam. Thus Louis Vyncke set up a business in 1912 importing Lancaster boilers from the UK and creating systems to provide hot water and steam for the flax processors. The obvious choice of fuel for the systems was the husk from the flax itself and so we have an early example of a biomass energy system turning a by-product into energy. Later, alongside the flax industry, there grew up a business making particleboard from flax (flaxboard), again using the husks to generate heat and steam for the production process. In the 1970s, the Belgian textile industry began its decline, although some companies are still in that business today, and flax became shorter in supply. The particleboard makers then turned to wood as the raw material for their panels and, naturally, from flax husks to wood waste for their fuel, continuing the biomass tradition. This sounds like a classic case of a company being in the right place at the right time. Vyncke was located in the middle of an important particleboard/flaxboard producing area and was experienced in generating energy from biomass. From this basis, the company has gone global over the years - and still does the majority of its turnover in the wood based panels sector. The first oil crisis did not do the company any harm either as, faced with a shortage of fuel oil, people looked for energy systems which could utilise alternative fuels. "That's when we started the development of our patented Dynamic Watercooled Stepgrate," explains senior sales manager Lieven Tarras, who has particular responsibility for Vyncke's business with the panel industry. "This invention is at the heart of all our installations, it is our strong point and means that we can offer multi-fuel energy plants to our customers, giving them a very real flexibility." The first such system was installed in the early 1980s and represented the first step for Vyncke from being simple steam boiler manufacturers to integrating combustion, engineering and boiler systems, says Mr Tarras. "Prior to that, we offered very simple combination systems with no control and there was generally no real concern about the smoke and gaseous emissions in those early days. However, throughout the 1980s, those environmental issues were becoming increasingly important." It seems that Vyncke's new patented step-grate already had the answers. "Because of the water cooling of our combination systems, we had better control of combustion quality because we didn't need air for cooling but used water," explains Mr Tarras. "Therefore we could regulate the combustion air to the optimum. "You have to understand that combustion is a chemical process and, as with every chemical reaction, it needs the right temperature, time, turbulence and the reaction components delivered in the right amounts. It is important to have the right amount of air for combustion without being driven by the need for air for cooling as well." The company does not itself supply exhaust gas cleaners for its energy plants, but tries to modify the combustion process to avoid the necessity for filter installations as much as possible. The principle of the Dynamic Watercooled Stepgrate, or DWS, is that the grate itself is rather like a staircase in appearance. Each step or tread of the 'staircase' is a water-filled tube which is part of a closed circuit. The water is forced around the tubes to keep the temperature of the grate stable. The combustible material burns on this water-cooled step grate, while between every step is a 'pusher' made of a special cast iron, which moves back and forth sending the combustible material down the steps at a regulated speed. The grate itself is divided into zones where the speed of progress of the combustible material and the amount of combustion air are regulated. Combustible material is fed into the top of the grate via a hopper and screw transporters. Other energy plant makers use pushers, says Mr Tarras but he claims the screws provide a more consistent and constant feed. Heat energy is recovered from the cooling water via a heat exchanger and used to pre-heat the incoming combustion air. "Water cooling has several advantages," says Mr Tarras. "You don't need air for cooling so the air is regulated solely for combustion quality and capacity. Also, water cooling controls the expansion of the grate and this results in better air distribution because you do not need to allow for expansion gaps on the grate parts. You can burn fuels of high calorific values such as very dry material. Finally, water cooling avoids clinker build-up because the clinker crystallises on the grate in small particles and is thus easier to evacuate." He went on to explain that burning sunflower husks is a good example because they have a low melting point and if temperature is not accurately controlled, they will coagulate and stick to the grate. A lot of MDF mills 'burn' at least part of their process water in their energy plant, but simply putting it on the fuel in an unregulated way will affect the combustion. "We inject that water directly into the combustion chamber but in a controlled way with a special metering pump - this is a much better system," says Mr Tarras. Vyncke also offers its Turbix dust burner after the grate to burn dust created from the panel making process - 'incidental dust' so to speak. For sander or other high quantities of dust, Vyncke recommends specialist dust burner suppliers to its clients. Luckily for Vyncke, the 1980s proved to be a period of rapid expansion in panel production globally, particularly with the increasing market success of MDF. "This means that today we have projects in every continent," says Mr Tarras. The company is not only involved in the wood industry, but has four business units, of which wood based panels is the first and biggest, accounting for 50-60% of Vyncke's e50m turnover. The largest such energy system supplied to date is an 80MW one at Classen's MDF factory in Baruth in the east of Germany. 'Energy demand in the wood processing industry is diverse: thermal oil, steam, hot water, hot gases and electricity are often needed simultaneously,' points out one of the company brochures. 'So Vyncke builds multimedia energy plants'. It claims to be the only company with inhouse expertise for this. The second business unit is the wood processing industry. This includes furniture, flooring and so on - principally users of wood based panels. These are generally smaller systems of up to 20MW. The third area is the agricultural industry such as rice, palm oil, coconut, sunflowers and these generally require installations to provide high-pressure steam in combination with electrical power. They are usually 50-60MW capacity thermal power and up to 11.5MW electrical power. The above two business areas account for around 10-15% of turnover at Vyncke. The fourth and final business unit is the power industry, currently accounting for 20% of turnover - and rising, according to Mr Tarras. "These are not electricity generators as such. We limit ourselves to combination plants for energy and steam generation and work with partners who provide electricity generating expertise and act as the main contractor," he explains. "We also sometimes set up 'temporary consortia' for some larger projects, such as one with ERDA of Belgium where we worked with AMEC SPIE. "In this particular project, bark from sawmills is used to generate steam and the steam is used primarily to produce electricity, while steam from after the turbine is used to dry sawdust. This dry sawdust is then made into fuel pellets, while any excess electricity is sold to the grid." With all the attention given to the threat of major European electricity generators being subsidised to take the raw material (wood) required by particleboard mills to burn in their plants, one might think there is a big opening there for Vyncke - something which might not go down well with their majority panel-making customer base. However, Mr Tarras assures me that those kind of massive projects are not where the company wants to be and are in "a different league, not for our size of company". "We try to enable people to burn what can't be used to make particleboard. We specialise our installations so they can accept waste from the wood based panels industry. We do have a few projects where maybe the material burned could be used in panel production, but that is the exception rather than the rule and those plants are small capacity - 2.5 to 4.5MW compared with 30 to 50MW in panel plants. "We also supplied one plant to a German electricity generator burning demolition wood but that material was unusable in panel manufacture." Vyncke's North American office has sold a number of plants to greenhouse-owning companies in Canada and the northern US to substitute natural gas fuel, again with otherwise unusable demolition timber. The Vyncke factory in Harelbeke was formerly a railway station and still displays some old steam engines and boilers as reminders of both the site's and the company's history. The key components of the energy plants are made and assembled here for world markets from scratch, starting with steel plate and some bought-in castings. Vyncke also has a large workshop in Frydek in the Czech Republic which has been operating for about 10 years, where assembly and manufacture of some peripheral equipment is carried out. Worldwide, the company directly employs about 250 people. Large heavy pressure vessels are normally sourced locally to the customer, to Vyncke specifications, to avoid transporting them great distances. "We do a lot of global sourcing, always mindful of the currency issues, but combustion and control systems are always made here in Harelbeke and all design and development work is done here," says Mr Tarras. On the 5th June this year, the company will open a workshop in Suzhou, China, where it will manufacture combustion systems solely for the Asian market. Dieter Vyncke, one of two sons of third-generation company chairman Dirk Vyncke, currently lives in Shanghai and is overseeing this development. His brother Peter Vyncke (36) is ceo of the company and based at the Belgian headquarters. Vyncke also has service centres in Thailand and Canada as well as its own facilities in Brazil. "The first three or four years of this century saw exceptional investment in energy systems for the Chinese market but there has been a shift in the last three or four years towards Europe, which went from 10 to 60% of total turnover. These are new panel factories as well as existing ones which are replacing their energy plants to reduce costs in the face of rising oil prices," says Mr Tarras. The advent of carbon credits has provided another strong incentive to panel mills to go down this 'green energy' route. They can gain credits which they will be able to sell. One current project under construction in Europe is for Sonae Indústria's factory in Oliveira do Hospital in Portugal. Here Vyncke is replacing an existing energy plant by building the new one alongside it so that the switch-over can be effected with minimal downtime. "There is a policy in Portugal to clear the debris from the forest floor to help prevent forest fires and this material is to be used in energy generation," says Mr Tarras. Sonae already plans to extend the new energy plant, which is due on stream in May 2008, to generate electricity in a co-generation scheme. There is a big move to biomass fuel for energy in Europe, explains Mr Tarras and a lot of European factories which have traditionally used natural gas as their energy source have seen their costs escalate dramatically. One such plant is Unilin's in Bazeilles, France and so the company is adding a Vyncke 20MW wood-fired hot gas generator to its existing line to almost completely eliminate the use of gas - and save money. At the time of WBPI's visit, Peter Vyncke was preparing the company's biennial report to be distributed at Ligna. It is nothing like any annual company report you have ever seen, taking the format of a parody on an inflight magazine. It is designed to be entertaining as well as informative, he says. "It will be special - even more than 2005's which took the form of a movie poster. It has a truly international theme and will include 10 features with interviews with customers, printed in eight different languages," says Mr Vyncke who is very enthusiastic about this publication. Copies will be available at the Vyncke stand in hall 27.