Timber industry research & analytics WhatWood: OSB imports into Russia grew despite launch of home mills
Following the results of seven months of 2013, OSB imports into Russia grew 30% year-on-year to 381,300 m3, as said in the study “OSB market in Russia in 2010 – Jan-Jul 2013” published recently by the analytic department of WhatWood News & Analytics.
Launch of three domestic OSB mills (Novovyatskiy ski mill, Hillman OSB, 2012; DOK Kalevala, 2013) did not result in declining imports. Internal demand for OSB in Russia continues to grow and is met chiefly by import deliveries.
However, it should be added that full-scale OSB production is yet to begin in the country. The first large mill, DOK Kalevala, was launched in June 2013 and is gaining capacity now. Hillman OSB (Kosterevo, Vladimir region) started production in November 2012 and has the capacity of just 30,000 m3 per year, and the products are shipped only to official dealers with long-term contracts. On July 24, 2012, Novovyatsky ski mill (Kirov) also announced start of the production. Rated capacity of the mill amounts to 100,000 m3 annually. The mill is to produce 1850x2500x9 mm boards. However, the whole second half of 2012 it worked in test mode and there were no commercial contracts. At the same time, joint capacity of announced OSB projects reaches 1.5 million m3 per year.
It is remarkable that this year geographic structure of imports changed: Romania gained the leading position with 121,700 m3 shipped to Russia in January-July 2013 (Kronospan and Egger accounted for the whole volume in almost equal shares). For the first time since 2009, Latvian Bolderaja lost leading position and curtailed sales by 17% to 85,700 m3; Latvia ranked second after Romania.
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