North American particleboard mills running at 55%-60% of capacity, MDF mills at 70%, as furniture producers replace particleboard with MDF
Wendy Lisney
LOS ANGELES
,
August 29, 2011
(Forestweb)
–
Changing demand patterns from furniture manufacturers are affecting capacity utilization at particleboard and MDF-HDF mills in North America, manufacturers say.
The majority of particleboard mills have been running at 55-60% of capacity in recent months, while MDF/HDF mills are running at around 70% of capacity, German industry news service Euwid reported on Aug. 27. Production is not expected to increase in the short or mid-term.
The higher MDF-HDF rate of capacity utilization is attributed to the furniture industry, which is increasingly replacing particleboard with MDF.
With demand unlikely to improve any time soon, consolidation within the MDF-HDF and particleboard industries is expected to increase. A number of companies are considering the sale of individual mills or all of their wood panel operations. Others, including Roseburg Forest Products which will close two more sites in South Carolina in Q3, are reducing production until market conditions improve.
The primary source of this article is Euwid, Gernsbach, Germany, on Aug. 27, 2011.
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