world news - 13.11.2007
Revolution looming in lumber industry
Wood Engineering Technology aims to turn the lumber industry on its
head with a process that can turn low-value pallet wood into high-value
structural timber. Director Tony Johnston says the Auckland
company can process all of a log, which is made up of different
standards of wood, into high-value structural lumber, compared with
potentially only about 30 per cent using a conventional sawmill. "We
don't have a lot of friends out there in the structural sawmilling
world because they see this as more of a threat than an opportunity
because it basically [makes] obsolete the existing sawmilling assets,"
Johnston says. The process can use small diameter, crooked and
short logs not suited to sawmilling, which are sawn into thin strips,
dried, graded and reassembled combining different grades to produce
high-quality timber. "You're reassembling the strength of the tree into the strength of each piece," he says. The
cost of producing a high-quality piece of lumber is similar to the
traditional method but the potential revenue is higher because of the
ability to maximise the raw materials. The company has received more than $225,000 of investment from the
Foundation for Research, Science & Technology towards the cost of
building a $2.5 million pilot plant during the next 18 months in South
Auckland to verify the manufacturing process. A $35 million
commercial plant with capacity to produce 50,000 cu m of the engineered
lumber a year is planned to follow the pilot. Sales of framing
lumber in New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands are worth
about $1.2 billion a year, while Johnston says the output from the
planned new commercial plant would account for about 2.5 per cent of
the market. "We're in discussion with three parties to take an
off-take agreement," Johnston says. "The intention is that the total
output of the first [commercial] plant will be sold before it's built." Johnston
believes the company's technology will change the nature of the
industry. The finished product will be able to be marketed at a lower
price than traditional structural lumber. "We've long known that
a large export opportunity exists for engineered wood products, an
order of magnitude larger than the New Zealand market, but until this
breakthrough we have been unable to meet the required price point. Now,
we can do better than that."
See also:
- — World’s oldest trees grow in California
- — Canada:Strong dollar has negative impact on value of wood products
- — Is the party over for Swedish sawmills?
- — Wooden peripheral equipment from Japan
- — Forest glut jams timber mills
