Metsä Group may surrender lease on forest areas in the Leningrad Region

Metsä Forest Podporozhye, a timber harvesting company that is part of Metsä Group (Finland), is planning to terminate employment contracts with all of its workers by mutual consent of the parties by October 2023, as reported by Novy Prospect referencing the press office of the Government of the Leningrad Region. The media also quotes the Natural Resources Committee of the Leningrad Region as having noted that Metsä Forest Podporozhye submitted no applications to terminate any agreements on forest areas lease.

In September 2022, the 47news online media quoted Oleg Malashchenko, Deputy Chair of the Government of the Leningrad Region, who said that Metsä Forest Podporozhye was leasing 272,000 ha of forest for the term of 50 years with the harvesting volume of 500,000 m³ per year.

In March 2022, Metsä Group announced that it would suspend the activity of its enterprises in the Leningrad Region. The group also stopped purchases of raw material for its Metsä Svir Sawmill and supplies to its Finnish and Swedish plants. Nevertheless, as Novy Prospect reports, in late 2022, the Finnish company partially resumed harvesting operations in Russia.