Panel-product Mills

There are three mills operating in the Republic of Ireland that manufacture panel-board from home grown wood fibre. The raw material used consists of pulp wood, sawmill residues (i.e. sawdust, woodchip and bark) and post consumer recovered wood (i.e. recycled wood).

Panel-product mills in Ireland using wood fibre

In 2011 the Irish wood-based panel sector had a combined output of 736,000 cubic metres which was produced from 1.29 million cubic metres of wood fibre.

The panel-board sector is strongly export orientated and in 2011 over 80% of the panel products produced in Ireland were sold in overseas markets.

The total volume of exports in 2011 amounted to 616,000 cubic metres which had a value of €174 million.

On average, over the three year period 2006 to 2008, 66% of all panel exports from the Republic of Ireland were to Northern Ireland and Britain with a further 10% to the Benelux  countries.

Further information at:

An Overview of the Irish Forestry and Forest Products Sector 2015

By Irish Forestry and Forest Products Association

COMPANIES

Coillte Panel Products Ltd. (CPP) was established in June 2007 as part of the Coillte Group. It is an international focused business which operates two wood-based panel facilities, i.e. SmartPly Europe Ltd. producing OSB and Medite Europe Ltd. producing MDF

SmartPly Europe – manufactures SmartPly Oriented Strand Board (OSB) at its production facility in Slieverue, Co. Kilkenny. It is manufactured by forming a mat of thin wood strips, coated with resins which are orientated on the external layers to the panels’ strength axis while the internal layers are perpendicular. Heat and pressure consolidates the board. The result is an innovative, environmentally sustainable, timber-based solution for structural and non-structural building applications which has replaced plywood in many environments.

Medite Europe Ltd. – has manufactured Medium Density Fibreboard (MDF) at its Clonmel facility since 1983. It is an engineered wood product which is manufactured from wood fibres and glued together with resin and subjected to heat and pressure. It is suitable for use in many household and industrial applications. These include the production of furniture, the manufacture of laminate flooring, shop-fitting and the production of architectural mouldings. . MDF is favoured by manufacturers and by end users as it is smooth, uniform and it is not prone to warping.

Masonite – operates a state of the art production facility for the manufacture of mounded fibreboard door facings at Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim. The door facings are made from engineered wood. Raw wood chips are refined into fibres which are then mixed with resins, moulded and consolidated under high temperature and pressure. The manufacturing process eliminates some of the natural disadvantages of wood to produce a dense hard durable material of consistent quality.  The door facings are supplied to other door manufacturers within the Masonite Group and to other door manufacturers throughout Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.