Stora Enso Timber is investing €3.6m in a new planing mill and expansion of the log sorting line at Paikuse sawmill in Estonia.
The company said the project will enable it to increase availability of its strength-graded wood products.
The planing mill will be used for strength-graded and regularised products targeted at the industrial building sector in the European and overseas markets. The planing line is part of the production process enabling part of the sawn production to be planed on-line.
Twenty additional log pockets will be added to the log sorting line to meet the required length-sorting capacity.
Work is due to start in the spring and production is scheduled to start in June 2005, with full capacity of 80,000m3 a year forecast to be reached by the end of 2005.
Matti Mikkola, senior vice-president, business line construction, said: “Stora Enso Timber can effectively offer standardised products for a timber frame building in different parts of the world.
“We are constantly expanding our product range and also increasing the volume offering to meet the needs of our customer base.”
Sawmill manager Tõnu Järv said: “An efficient production process and switching a significant part of the production over to value-added products are the strategic backgrounds for this investment.”
He said the investment could create some new jobs at Paikuse but added that production volume would not change.
