Stora Enso invests in Austrian sawmill

Stora Enso Wood Products is continuing to implement its Building Solutions strategy by constructing a cross-laminated timber (CLT) production unit at Ybbs Sawmill in Austria. The EUR 23 million project will commence in the first quarter of 2011 and is expected to be completed during the third quarter of 2012.

"This investment, together with the existing CLT production unit at Bad St. Leonhard in Austria and the recently acquired building element producer Eridomic Oy in Finland, will provide a strong basis for further growth in Building Solutions. As our third investment in the past few months, it is an important milestone in increasing the share of higher value-added businesses in Wood Products' portfolio," says Hannu Kasurinen, EVP Wood Products.

"The European CLT market has been growing by almost 20% per year over the past decade, and we expect the demand of CLT-based solutions to continue increasing rapidly. We want to grow with our customers in our established markets, single-family housingin Central and Western Europe. We also see good prospects for CLT-based multi-storey buildings, where wood has traditionally had marginal market share. A good example of this is the on-going eight-storey building project in London," comments Kasurinen.

Stora Enso is currently developing a CLT-based building system primarily for urban multi-storey construction. The acquisition of Finnish market leader Eridomic, which has a strong position in special roof elements and large wall elements, gives Stora Enso exceptional engineering competencies and a valuable customer base.

"We plan to develop Eridomic's existing core business and bring in our CLT-based building system as a new business," says Hannu Kasurinen.

The Ybbs Sawmill is ideally located for the new CLT unit as it offers efficient and optimised raw material flow and excellent logistic connections to markets. The new production unit, with annual capacity of 63 500 m3 of cross-laminated timber, will employ 59 people when fully operational.