Skelleftea, Sweden—The last six months’ sales to Germany and Austria amount to an order value of just over EUR 24.7 million for Valutec, located here, which supplies kilns to the sawmill industry. The company has sold a total of 10 continuous kilns to the markets during the period, which is a fourfold increase compared to the annual average over the last five years.
Low lumber prices, together with high demand for wood products, mean that sawmills in Central Europe are on the offensive and are investing in increased capacity. A major reason for the increased demand is the shift to increased construction in wood. For example, refined wood products such as construction components in CLT and glulam have taken market shares from steel and concrete. This in turn has meant higher quality requirements from customers.
“The increased quality requirements in these markets have created openings for our continuous kilns. Our long-term strategy and technological development has been based on the idea that we should be the market’s best choice when it comes to optimizing both quality, capacity and energy consumption,” says Robert Larsson, CEO at Valutec. The higher quality requirements have also led to higher volumes of lumber needing to be dried in modern plants.
“This means that more sawmills need to invest, and many have chosen our continuous kilns when they have expanded. It is a nice acknowledgement for us and the result of long-term work to introduce the products to the market. For many sawmills in Central Europe, continuous kilns are a new way of working and for us it has been important to lower the thresholds by offering training and close collaborations.”
Valutec is a world leader in the continuous kiln segment and has a comprehensive offering with several proprietary models. Common to continuous kilns is high capacity and quality and that a steady flow of wood provides a very competitive energy consumption per MBF.
Valutec’s customers are both large groups and privately owned sawmills.
“Both in Central Europe and in the rest of the world, our TC continuous kilns have opened doors. It is a model that takes advantage of the capacity advantages of the continuous kilns while offering full flexibility to mix dimensions and types of wood,” says Larsson.
Valutec built the first modern TC continuous kiln in Sweden 10 years ago. Since then, the model has been sold to both Russia, Central Europe and North America and in total there are more than 20 TC kilns that are now in operation around the world. For more information, go to www.valutec.ca.
