Major order for USNR in Chile

23 November 2022


USNR has announced the order of a complete sawmilling system to the Chilean company Foraction Chile. The state-of-the-art production line is designed to process radiata pine and will be installed at a greenfield site in the Los Rios region about 800km south of Santiago.

The scope of the contract is a complete sawmill – from the debarker/log sorter optimiser, through the log breakdown equipment, finishing with the trim/sort/stack line. This project marks one of USNR’s most comprehensive undertakings outside of North America and Europe.

The saw line will be a European-style merry-go-round line that has proven to be very successful in Chile throughout the years. The primary sawing machines will be Sawmaster 1600 band saws arranged in a quad configuration. In this iteration of USNR’s merry-go-round concept, there will be an additional chipper canter and a circular saw 700 gang saw. This arrangement makes it possible for certain log sizes to pass straight through the saw line, thus maximising the productivity on all sawing patterns.

The saw line will be backed up by a Catech XT edger optimiser line. The edger will be equipped with an additional twin-blade split saw for maximum versatility.

A complete, 45-bin green sorting and stacking line completes USNR’s portion of the project. Main components in the sorting line include a revolver lug loader, multi-track fence, and a multi-saw trimmer. The stacker line features a catching lug tier-forming table in front of USNR’s low-profile Stacker with an overhead tier management system to ensure maximum productivity.

In addition to the equipment supplied by USNR, USNR’s partner in Chile, Solecia, will be responsible for supplying the log sorting line, log infeed equipment, and residual handling equipment for this project.