Federal Forestry Agency has named Siberian OSB mill construction to be a high priority investment

Federal Forestry Agency of the Russian Federation has named SibDSM CJSC (Siberian fiberboard mill) to be a high priority investment project during which an OSB mill will be launched in the city of Svirsk (Irkutsk Region). The construction works will start in July 2011, the first product output is anticipated in 2013. The company is going to reach the full capacity in 2016.

«Wood processing mill in Svirsk will be one of the biggest producers of eco friendly construction materials, - said Alexander Kolesnikov, Director General of SibDSM CJSC». - It is anticipated that all amount of raw wood (including fine wood, softwood timber and timber harvesting residues) will be deeply processed. The most up-to-date technologies will be employed in the project. The main consumers will be Russia, the countries of Asia-Pacific Region and CIS».

A complete cycle of waste-free production (wood processing from saw dust to the end product, such as a house) will be developed in the scope of project. Three product lines will be manufactured at the plant: oriented strand board (OSB), wood fiber insulation board (WFIB) and I-beams in the amount of 500 thousand cubic meters, 250 thousand cubic meters and 1 mln of running meters per year, respectively. The mill will consume the energy generated by the biggest power unit in Russia which uses timber processing residues.

The estimated scope of investments will amount to 680 mln euro. The project designer will be a Swiss engineering company Swiss Global PManagement. For the moment OSB-panels are not produced in Russia, they are mainly imported from Latvia, West Europe and North America.

There is a long-term trend towards the increase in demand for OSB-panels at the world markets. According to Poyry, a Finnish consulting company, Russian and Chinese markets will be the fastest growing ones, in Russia the demand for OSB-panels will double and in China it will jump from 70 thousand cubic meters to 1 mln cubic meters by the year of 2017, also Canadian and Japanese (as well as other APR countries) markets will show significant growth.