The first, Guangxi Dong Zheng Wood, is located in on a 15.6ha site in Chongzhou Town, Guangxi Province, and has a total annual MDF  capacity of 180,000m3 on two Chinese-made  multi-opening press lines, giving a total of 18 daylights.
The second is Guangxi Dong Lin Wood, on an 8ha site in Yiyang Town and this factory has an annual capacity of 60,000m3 on one multi-opening  MDF line. The third factory is Guangxi Laibin Kaili Wood, on 8.5ha in Laibin Town, with an annual output of 100,000m3 on one multi-opening  line. Here, the production is a mix of MDF and HDF.
When planning its fourth factory, to be known as Guangxi Yizhou Kaili Wood, in Yizhou Town, the company decided to ‘go large’ and build a continuous press line on a 24ha site.
“We decided to build this one as a continuous line because of the increasing market demand and because we could make a better quality board with such a line,” said Gao Guofei, general manager of Kaili.
“We chose this location because Yizhou is a hub for connection with cities around Guangxi Province and is well served for transport by road, sea or rail and we use all three. Also, Yizhou is very rich in terms in general has abundant  forestry.”
The raw material concerned is mixed hardwoods, eucalyptus and pine and comes from a 100km radius of the factory.
Mr Gao said that his company has great technical strength in the wood based panel industry, with very experienced staff, including a number of trained technical and management specialists. “These are the solid foundation of the company,” he said. “The owners of all the MDF mills, who are seven individuals: Wu Zhiping, Ye Xuanmu, Zheng Yuanwei, Tang Kehua, Gao Guofei, Shi Huagao  and Xu Congfeng, have a broad and stable sales network which they have built with sweat and toil over many years.”
Mr Ye Xuanmu  is company president. The contract for the Yizhou Kaili press line was placed with Siempelkamp of Germany  on March 15, 2008 and comprised the forming, pressing and finishing areas of the factory. The ContiRoll  contin- uous press is eight feet wide by 23.8m long.
Full design capacity of 135,000m3 was achieved in February 2010, but the actual output, according to Mr Gao, is already equivalent to around 220,000m3/year.
For the refiner, Kaili chose Andritz of Austria and a 54/60in diameter unit.
Imeas of Italy supplied the sanding line and Giben, also of Italy, the cut-to-size angular sawing system.
The energy plant is from GTS Energy technology Co Ltd of Shanghai and is fuelled by bark, waste wood and waste fibre to generate just the thermal energy required by the MDF/HDF line. Debarking and chipping equipment came from Chinese suppliers and the installation  and construction  was managed by a local Chinese contractor, with special- ist technicians coming from the European  supplier companies.
The production is mainly two to six millimetre thickness, in E1 and E0 grades.
In common with many Chinese panel manufacturers, Kaili has no value-adding facilities and none planned for the future. Such downstream processing is normally carried out by specialist companies.
Most of the production is supplied to the local market and used in furniture  manufacture but Kaili intends to export some of its output and is planning a repre- sentative office to initially export products to the Middle East, beginning in 2011.
The company has further plans to expand its capacity and has recently bought a four feet wide continuous press line from Shanghai Wood Based Panel Machinery Co Ltd.
“This year we will also buy another one or two imported four feet lines, probably from Siempelkamp, and next year we intend to purchase another eight feet wide continuous press line with a 33m press,” said Mr Gao.
“We will build a new line in Wuhan, Hubei Province, for the markets in Beijing and Shanghai and later in Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province and also in Guangxi Province.”
The company has come through the global recession with some problems but now sees a bright future.
“We experienced some hard times in the market in 2009 but now the market is rebounding and once again there is great demand,” he continued. “The price has reached the same level as in 2006, when the market was at its best, and we believe that demand will continue to increase in the future in China.”
With recent moves to making OSB in China, several panel makers are contemplating going into that product, but not so Mr Gao who said: “It is not a good idea to make OSB in this country”.
However, the Dong Zheng Group obviously feels that MDF/HDF are good products to make in China and we are clearly going to hear a lot more of this company in the coming few years.

The Andritz refiner at Kaili Wood

The team at Yizhou Kaili on the construction site for its latest MDF line

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