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Review of the forest industry and CTL method

Hannu Kivelä
Director, Strategy and Customer Cooperation
Ponsse Oyj

Demand for wood increasing in all sectors

The reform of the forest industry and the building of additional capacity increases industrial fellings, thereby extending the global market for forest machines. More than a half of the roundwood used by the industry worldwide is delivered to sawmills and plywood plants in the mechanical forest industry
and about one third to the defibering industry; slightly over one tenth is used for the manufacture of different types of boards (fibre and chipboards, MDF and OSB). The demand for wood in the manufacture of sawn timber and plywood increases by some 0.4 per cent per year, in the defibering industry by about 1.3 per cent and in board manufacture around 2.3 per cent. Although the share of the defibering forest industry of the industrial use of wood globally is ever-increasing, it does not appear to be exceeding the amount used in the mechanical forest industry. Industrial fellings are increasing in all markets except for on the west coast of North America, and even there the fall is due to environmental reasons. All in all the use of wood in the forest industry will rise by some 300 million cubic metres by the year 2020.

Fighting Climate change with energywood

Climate policy showed major progress at the Bali Climate Change Conference in December 2007. Climate change is now a generally-recognised fact worldwide. Europe aspires to radically reduce its greenhouse gas emissions: according to the proposal of the European Commission, the EU’s energy production produced by renewable energy sources should be 20 per cent by the year 2020, compared to the current share of 8.5 per cent. The intention is to cover much of this with wood. On the level of the European Union as a whole, increasing the share of renewable energy by one per cent using energy wood would mean the combustion of 100 million cubic metres of wood. In North America, too, increasing the use of wood in energy production is a political priority area and the use of wood is consequently increasing. Increased wood energy harvesting shows in the growing demand for cut-to-length machines. Regardless of the felling and handling method, energy wood is usually transported from the forest to the roadside with a forestry tractor. The combined felling of timber and energy wood also increases the demand for harvesters and harvester heads.