Processors compete for forest by-products

DEVELOPMENT in the forest products sector in Ireland this year has been such that despite steady, ongoing and significant increase in timber production seen in recent years, meeting demand for raw materials between now and the end of the century will be a close thing.

The development is all the more surprising given that up to recently the industry had great difficulty getting rid of the pulpwood and sawmill residues which form such an important part of the forestry economy.

Now these materials are going to be fought over by a number of large panel board producing plants which have set up in Ireland to supply the European market.

Medite in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, Louisiana Pacific/Coillte (LP/Coillte) in Slieverue, near the new Waterford Port, Finsa in Scariff, Co Clare, and Masonite, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim, if all running at full production, would between them require more pulpwood and sawmill residues than our forests can currently supply.

As it is, LP/Coillte is only running at around 50 per cent to 75 per cent of capacity, and Masonite will not go into production until early next year.

Production of the raw materials is currently running at 1.4 million cubic tonnes annually, and is projected to increase to around 1.8 million cubic tonnes by 2000.

The panel board factories, running at full capacity, would require around 1.77 million cubic metres of raw material annually.

"If everyone was running at full blast then the supply would be very tight," says LP/Coillte project manager, Mr William Glenn. "The projected figures (for supply and demand) show an almost exact balance and that means there has to be no waste," he says. "But of course there is always waste.

"However the reality is that plants' capacity utilisation goes up and down and you don't have to be far off full capacity to be leaving significant chunks of timber in the system," he adds.

"It's going to be tight but it's manageable," says Mr William Fitzgerald, project manager with the forest products department in Forbairt. "We are confident it can be done."

Pulpwood is the wood taken from forests when they are being thinned to allow the remaining trees grow to maturity, or the unsawn, thinner, top ends of the logs brought to the mills. Residues are the chips, sawdust and bark which are left alter the milling process.

Masonite, LP/Coillte, and the new expanded Medite are Irish examples of the globalisation of the forest products industry by US companies. Until recently the industry was very regionalised.

The companies are involved in producing goods relatively new to the European market. Such products have been enormously successful in the US but have yet to achieve, or are in the process of achieving, the same level of market penetration in Europe.

The demand for pulpwood and sawmill residues from the panel board plants means there is now no room for any further consumers of the raw materials to establish themselves here this side of the year 2005.

By then the amount of timber being produced by Irish forests will have increased to such an extent as to allow another, capital intensive consumer establish itself here. The extra capacity could be taken up by a pulpmill, a papermill or further panel board production. It is too early at this stage to begin assessing which of these might be the most feasible. "We'll be keeping our options open until the year 2000 at least," says William Fitzgerald. Meanwhile every screed of timber being produced by Irish forests is now in demand.