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LONDON (Alliance News) - Active Energy Group PLC Tuesday said it has launched a new high-volume hardwood production line at its AEG WoodFibre Yuzhny Port processing facility in Ukraine which will increase the production of hardwood four-fold.
The supplier of industrial wood fibre, timber and biomass for energy system developer said it has finished testing and installing the production line and it is now fully operational.
"The new handling and processing equipment is part of a large-scale investment programme to facilitate a four-fold increase in its production capacity to enable it to meet the rising demand for wood fibre from its Turkish MDF manufacturing customer base," said the company.
To put that into some form of perspective, the AEG WoodFibre division made USD17.4 million in revenue in 2014, which was up from only USD1.6 million in 2013, with that four-fold increase in production expected to yield significant results.
"AEG WoodFibre, which is now the largest exporter of processed wood from Ukraine, has established an excellent reputation for quality and reliability within this important market, and the Board believes that it has considerable growth potential," it added.
That new production line will be joined by a new softwood wood chip production line in the first quarter of 2016.
Turkey is Europe's leading supplier of MDF, producing around 5.0 million metric tonnes a year with a market value of around USD2.50 billion. Active Energy said forecasts suggest that figure will grow by around 8% year-on-year to over USD3.0 billion by 2017.
"The new equipment will enable us to build on the long-standing commercial relationships that we have developed with our existing customers, and should introduce further opportunities within the Turkish MDF manufacturing sector," said Chief Executive Richard Spinks.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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