Russia–ULK Group, which owns sawmills that process Softwoods, is investing more than €400 million in one of the country’s biggest sawmill investments in modern times. The ambition is to have one of the world’s largest and most modern sawmills, with an annual capacity of more than 1 million cubic meters (425,000 MBF) sawn timber and 600,000 tons of pellets annually, when completed in Archangelsk in 2023. To help achieve that, Sweden-based Valutec will deliver eight TC continuous kilns to ULK, making it the biggest deal in company history.
“That ULK chose Valutec for this state-of-the-art project proves that our solutions are a good match for sawmills all over the world,” says Robert Larsson, CEO of Valutec Group, which consists of around 50 experts working solely with wood drying. “Our mission is to facilitate an increased use of wood products in every customer market. We are honored to help ULK optimize their drying process, which we know makes a big difference on every sawmill’s bottom line.”
Valutec is the only company offering TC kilns, where individual drying zones make it possible to combine high capacity and flexibility with optimum quality. To improve logistics and safety, ULK will use a closed traverse system instead of forklifts to move timber packages. The TC kilns are equipped with Valutec’s control system Valmatics 4.0, which has an integrated simulator that enables simultaneous optimization of capacity, quality and energy consumption.
The ULK Group is one of Russia’s biggest sawmill groups. The group owns four sawmills, and with the addition of a fifth sawmill the total annual capacity will exceed 2,350,000 cubic meters (999,000 MBF) sawn timber and 900,000 tons of pellets. Learn more by visiting www.ulkust.ru and www.valutec.ca.
