Despite many regions still seeing reduced demand for wood-based panels, there is much to report on in this latest global survey on the particleboard industry. In the last issue of WBPI we covered Europe and North America, with European markets still challenging but production rates still expected to rise slightly in 2025. Capacity improvement projects are of course few and far between in Europe.
This survey covers the Rest of the World, with many more updates to report on. One particular highlight is the figures coming through showing the increase in PB capacity in China over these past few years.
Many Chinese panel producers have placed increased emphasis on PB over MDF investments, due to many reasons, including product cost-effectiveness, lighter board weights and reduced energy/emission requirements.
The sheer number of continuous lines coming online in these past couple of years is impressive, and we’ve added updated statistics from Chinese press manufacturer Yalian, which has secured a huge level of orders in China these past few years. While we see Chinese new line orders starting to reduce now, this update does illustrate the increased PB trend in the country. The Asia region in general is seeing the most PB capacity investment activity in our Rest of the World region.
Our main survey listings feature mills’ installed capacity as at the end of December 2024, with new plants that came online during 2025 being added to the main listing tables in the 2026 report. Our headline statistics for installed particleboard capacity for the Rest of the World region is 56,554,000m3, which represents a big increase, mainly due to the swathe of PB plants that have come online in China during 2024.
Our installed particleboard capacity for Europe & North America is 67,840,000m3, giving a combined global total of installed particleboard capacity for Europe, North America and the Rest of the World of 124,394,000m3.
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