International Forest Industries

Tigercat Industries has announced that it has built and shipped its 30,000th machine in January 2024, just over 30 years into its existence. From humble beginnings in 1992 when Tigercat had a single product, very little dealer representation, and produced just a handful of machines, the company has grown steadily, expanding both its production capacity and product breadth.

A few quick facts

• Tigercat debuted the 726 feller buncher in April 1992 at a forestry equipment show in Quitman Georgia.

• By 1995, Tigercat had two drive-to-tree feller bunchers, two track feller bunchers, and two bunching shear models with distribution in Canada and the United States.

• By 1997, Tigercat had a full product line to offer southern US dealers with the addition of a knuckleboom loader and the industry’s first successful, serial production hydrostatic skidder.

• In 2000, Tigercat was well on its way to becoming the dominant player in steep slope harvesting applications, offering a six-wheel drive skidder and the L830 feller buncher. Both were destined to become flagship products for the company. In addition, Tigercat entered the vegetation management sector with its first mulcher carrier. The range of carriers and attachments that have followed are crucial inputs to wildfire mitigation strategies in many regions globally.

• By 2005, Tigercat was present in Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, UK and Sweden among other countries.

• In 2012 Tigercat had grown in 20 years from two to 1,000 employees and introduced the 880 logger, the first in a series of versatile, forest duty swing machines.

Today, Tigercat has the most complete full-tree product line-up in the industry, along with a growing range of CTL harvesters, forwarders and harvesting heads. Tigercat launched a new brand, TCi in 2022 and put the TCi badge on its first dozer, the 920. In the last four years, the company has been developing a line of material processing products with two launches to date – the 6500 chipper and 6900 grinder. 2024 will see a slew of new and exciting products introduced to the market.

Tigercat recently opened a new facility dedicated to the material processing product line and is currently building an additional facility. When complete the company will have over 1.4 million square feet of manufacturing capacity. That’s 130 000 square metres or 32 acres under roof. Over 160 dealer locations in 25 countries represent the Tigercat and TCi brands, along with an extensive factory support network. The company employs over 2,000.

One thing that hasn’t changed over the years is Tigercat’s dedication to the customer base and its relentless pursuit of innovation and improvement.

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With the goal of further strengthening its own market position in Asia, the EGGER Group acquired a 25.1% stake in the Thai wood-based material manufacturer Panel Plus Co., Ltd. Sustainable international growth is an essential part of the EGGER Group’s strategic agenda. In addition to the production and distribution of its products in Europe and America, where the family company is represented with a total of 22 production plants, the Asian market is playing an increasingly important role. The purchase agreement was signed on November 30 2023 and the closing took place on January 3 2024. The parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price and further details of the transaction.

“As a significant growth market, Asia plays an important role in our strategic considerations. We have been considering expanding our presence there for some time now. In Panel Plus, we have found the ideal partner in this respect. Panel Plus has state-of-the-art production sites and a product portfolio that is perfectly tailored to regional requirements. We are convinced that we will benefit greatly from their local expertise and will be able to exploit further growth opportunities together. We are delighted with this strategic partnership,” says Thomas Leissing, Chief Financial Officer EGGER Group and Speaker of the Group Management, explaining the background to the investment decision.

Panel Plus Co., Ltd. was founded in 1990 and today produces a wide range of wood-based materials such as chipboard and MDF boards, both laminated and unlaminated. The main production plant is located in Hat Yai in the southern Thai province of Songkhla.

Great opportunities for further development in Asia

Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam are the core markets of Panel Plus. The core target groups are the local furniture industry and distributors. Growing market demand, state-of-the-art production technology, and the capacity of Panel Plus, combined with EGGER’s input to expand the product portfolio, form the foundation for a collaborative value creation.

The stake in Panel Plus now gives EGGER the opportunity to broaden its own market access, address additional customer target groups and further expand availability and service for them.

The EGGER Group and Panel Plus share the same convictions regarding high product and service quality, responsible production, and constant innovation. Both parties are convinced that they can successfully realise growth potential together.

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I explored some ideas in Editors Comment about how to save the rainforest in the June July 2023 issue – (How much money is needed to save the rainforest? ) and Oct Nov 2023 – (The rich can go a long way to saving the planet).

Researching for this article I came across the relatively new ‘The Earth Fund’ which was created by a commitment of $10 billion from Jeff Bezos founder of Amazon. After what appears to be relatively quiet start they have recently bounced into action timed to coincide with COP 28 in Dubai.

They announced – WASHINGTON, Dec. 7,2023 /PRNewswire/ – A new data dashboard launched today tracks the collective progress countries have made toward their commitment to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation this decade. The new platform – the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration Dashboard – was developed by the Bezos Earth Fund, Systems Change Lab, and the Forest Declaration Assessment Partners, and finds countries are falling woefully short of their commitments to end deforestation by 2030.

Recently published reports, including the Forest Declaration Assessment and the State of Climate Action 2023, find that deforestation increased by 4-7% between 2021 and 2022. The permanent loss of 5.8- 6.6 million hectares (Mha) of forest means that the world is far off course from halting deforestation by 2030. Global efforts to protect other ecosystems aren’t faring much better, with peatland degradation occurring across an area roughly the size of Kenya (57 Mha) and mangrove losses once again ticking upward.

The Earth Fund led by Bezos could be a starting point for serious collection of funds from rich individuals and Governments alike to go towards saving the Amazon and Congo Rainforest.

Referring to Fobes rich list: The United States still boasts the most billionaires, with 735 list members worth a collective $4.5 trillion. China (including Hong Kong and Macau) remains second, with 562 billionaires worth $2 trillion, followed by India, with 169 billionaires worth $675 billion. The amount of money in private hands is staggering. Just as the earth is staggering to a doomsday scenario.

If forest fires continue unabated in 2024 reforestation will never catch up. The earth as we know it could fail by as early as 2030.

Editor
Robin Peach

P.S.
Lula’s bid to style himself climate leader at Cop28 undermined by Opec move

Brazilian president’s plans to approve new fossil fuel projects sit awkwardly with pledge to meet 1.5C target.

Read this excellent article which in part relates to the Amazon by Jonathan Watts in the Guardian. (We will run in full in our Digital magazine Dec JANUARY 2024)

Next year we plan to attend the following shows:

Timber Processing & Energy Expo (TP&EE)
September 25-27, 2024, Portland, Oregon

Demo International 2024
September 19-21 Ottawa

FinnMETKO, Jamsa 29th – 31 August

KWF Tagung Schwarzenborn
19th – 22nd June

See you there!

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Ponsse Studio presents: Manager 2.0

Welcome to the Ponsse Studio event on 31 January! At the event, we will proudly present PONSSE Manager 2.0, a modern new digitalisation platform for forestry.

Ponsse Manager 2.0 is a solution that gathers Ponsse’s entire digital offering into a single package. The user only needs to sign up once, and all the digital services that are required to improve operational efficiency and productivity are at the user’s disposal.

In Ponsse Manager 2.0, the user can create a personalised homepage that focuses on the data that matters most. Every important piece of information is visible immediately, variations can be discovered quickly, and corrective action can be taken directly.

The English language event will take place on 31 January 2024 at 10:00 / 10 a.m. and 19:00 / 7 p.m. (EET).

The event will be subtitled in Finnish, Swedish, German, French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Japanese, Norwegian and English.

The event is hosted by André Noël Chaker.

Register now and embark with us on an incredible journey to the summit of digitalisation.

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