Economical solutions for African newcomers to the wood-based panel market

The CPS+ continuous press at Bigstar-Panneaux d’Algérie in El Tarf, Algeria

Bigstar subsidiary Panneaux d’Algérie recently produced the first board on its new Dieffenbacher complete MDF plant in El Tarf, Algeria, the first continuous wood-based panel plant in North Africa.

Guelai Mohamed Chiheb, CEO at Bigstar, is pleased with the project’s success. “The collaboration with Dieffenbacher has been excellent right from the start. Our trust in the company, especially its employees, has been confirmed. With our new Dieffenbacher plant, we can offer our customers high-quality MDF boards at fair prices”, he says.

The plant includes all subsections, ranging from the wood yard through the CPS+ continuous press to the short-cycle laminating line for coating finished boards. Designed for smaller capacities, the plant takes advantage of the flexibility of the CPS+ system.

Dieffenbacher's flagship press can be an ideal entry-level system for newcomers to the wood-based panel market and an economical alternative for easily replacing older single- or multi-opening presses in small-capacity plants.

In recent years, Dieffenbacher, and its Chinese subsidiary, Shanghai Wood-based Panel Machinery (SWPM), has specialised in offering complete packages for small-capacity continuous particleboard and MDF plants at attractive prices for newcomers to the market.

Depending on customer requirements, the lines include CPS+ presses from Germany or ContiPlus presses manufactured in China.

“In the past, companies wanting to operate a small plant were limited to buying from Asian low-cost providers since the big wood-based panel plant manufacturers simply had no solutions for small plants in their portfolios”, explains Didier Goesaert, area sales director at Dieffenbacher. “Many of these companies discovered their new low-cost suppliers were geared to ‘make a quick profit and leave’. It left companies vulnerable when they needed spare parts or support for optimisation or unplanned shutdowns".

LONG-TERM SUCCESS
Given the complexity of a complete production plant and life cycles of 20 years or more, plant engineering is a long-term business. Serious plant engineering not only involves developing innovative and reliable technologies but also requires understanding the entire production process and aligning individual machines with each other.

Training operating personnel is equally important, as is guaranteeing fast, high-performance lifetime service. This is what Dieffenbacher has provided for many years. It’s why Dieffenbacher and SWPM have created a complete solution for particleboard and MDF production designed for small-capacity plants starting at 300m³ per day.

Like large plants, the solution encompasses the entire process beginning with logs, wood chips, recycled wood or alternative raw materials. It continues through size reduction, screening, drying, glueing, forming and pressing right up to raw board handling and packaging of the panels ready for shipping.

An energy system is also included, as is the entire plant automation. Compared to production on a multi-opening press, the continuous solution gives manufacturers increased flexibility in board thicknesses and lengths. Additionally, the more uniform boards with a smoother surface require much less sanding and lower density to achieve the same mechanical properties, resulting in lower wood and glue consumption.

GOING BEYOND THE BOARD
Dieffenbacher also offers business development expertise and technical support. “We can answer questions about wood sourcing, the price levels that result in profitability, how glue can be provided for production even under difficult climatic conditions, and, most importantly, project financing", says Goesaert.

"This knowledge is the key difference between a low-cost machine supplier and Dieffenbacher, a fifth-generation family-owned plant manufacturer rich in experience".

Besides Bigstar /Panneaux d’Algérie, Dieffenbacher also impressed Ghamoud, another Algerian company, and Egypt-based Egypt Kuwait Holding subsidiary Nile Wood, with its concepts tailored to the needs of African wood-based panel manufacturers.

Ghamoud ordered a complete particleboard plant from Dieffenbacher in October 2019. As with Bigstar /Panneaux d’Algérie’s plant, the project is being carried out jointly by Dieffenbacher and SWPM.

Signing the first board at Bigstar-Panneaux d’Algérie’s Dieffenbacher MDF plant in El Tarf, Algeria

ALTERNATIVES TO WOOD
The order from Nile Wood dates from 2018, and the complete MDF plant was supplied by Dieffenbacher's headquarters in Eppingen.

Nile Wood uses Sesbania wood from its own plantations as the raw material for its MDF line. Sesbania is a fast-growing plant that matures for harvesting within two years. It is environmentally friendly due to its ability to fix nitrogen. The water for the plantations is processed from urban wastewater.

To help overcome the shortage of wood in some regions of Africa, Dieffenbacher offers solutions for using alternative raw materials in panel production. These materials include rice, sorghum and wheat straw, which would otherwise be burned mainly in the fields.

As a result, processing these materials into panels contributes to environmental and climate protection. Jute and cotton stalks, bamboo and bagasse, are other common substitutes for which Dieffenbacher provides its customers with plant concepts.

In addition, the company develops customised solutions for other fast-growing woods and annual plants. One alternative raw material project is the world’s first plant to produce MDF from date palm fronds, which the Egyptian National Service Projects Organization (NSPO) recently ordered from Dieffenbacher (see report in WoodBiz Africa issue 27).

The facility is being built in the Toshka region of Egypt and is scheduled to produce its first board in the fall of 2025. Work on the construction site began in April 2023. Dieffenbacher has received four new plant orders with CPS+ continuous presses from Africa within the last five years, proving the practicality of its advanced concepts for newcomers to the wood-based panel market.

Source: WoodBiz Africa Magazine
(Page 35 - 36)