Executive summary

Scope

• Wood Based Panels International magazine (WBPI) is famous for its unique surveys containing lists of all the mills producing OSB, MDF and particleboard panels worldwide, which it has been publishing annually for over 12 years.
• Listings for OSB in North America and the ‘Rest of the World’ are both published in the April/May issue each year. Those for MDF are published in two parts: Mills in Europe and North America in the June/July issue; and mills in the ‘Rest of the World’ in the August/September issue. Particleboard lists are also published in two parts on the same basis as MDF, with Part 1 in the October/November issue and Part 2 in the December/January issue. This title combines the listings for MDF into one document.
• Not only do these surveys provide an invaluable source of information about the mills’ locations and annual capacities, but they also include in-depth, expert analysis of the markets in terms of current trends and forecasts for the coming years.

Key highlights

• In terms of trade, European particleboard saw an upturn in 2010 over 2009, with imports rising 14% and exports by 8.5%, including intra-European trade.
• Despite a slight decline in output and some mill/line closures, Germany remained the largest producer in Europe last year.
• Our total capacity figure for the industry in 2010 in the ‘Rest of the world’ shows a very slight, almost insignificant increase of 43,000m3 over the 2009 capacity of 30,391m3, to 30,434m3.
• There are estimated to be a total of over 280 particleboard lines in China – a figure which it is difficult to verify as the vast majority are under 100,000m3 capacity – well under in many cases, with capacities as low as 28,000m3/year being listed.

Reasons to buy

• Take strategic business decisions using detailed historic and forecast data related to particleboard production and mill capacities
• Understand the demand factors within the global particleboard industry, along with key market trends and growth opportunities

Table of contents

Introduction
North American capacity overview
EU 15 capacity overview
Other Europe capacity overview
European manufacturing plant capacities
US manufacturing plant capacities
Canada and Mexico manufacturing plant capacities
Rest of the world capacity overview
Average line capacities
Future capacity changes
Rest of the world – China – manufacturing plant capacities
Rest of the world – South America – manufacturing plant capacities
Rest of the world – North East Asia – manufacturing plant capacities
Rest of the world – South East Asia – manufacturing plant capacities
Rest of the world – Other Asia – manufacturing plant capacities
Rest of the world – Australasia – manufacturing plant capacities
Rest of the world – Africa – manufacturing plant capacities
Appendix

List of tables

North American capacity
North American average line capacity
EU15 capacity
Capacity outside EU15
North America future capacity changes
EU15 future capacity changes
Non EU15 future capacity changes
Future capacity changes: Europe and North America
Mills outside Europe and North America at end 2010
Rest of the world average line capacity 2010
Europe and North America average line capacity 2010
Distribution of production line capacities 2010
Future capacity development
World particleboard capacity

List of figures

Europe existing plants, December 2010
US existing plants, December 2010
Canada existing plants, December 2010
Mexico existing plants, December 2010
Rest of the world existing plants, December 2010