Partnership and Trust: New Siempelkamp MDF plant for Metro-Ply Group

Krefeld, October 28th 2024 – Partnership and trust in the Siempelkamp Group lead to Metro-Ply’s order of their sixth MDF Line which will be the company’s No.5 in Thailand. The plant will be locating in Surat Thani. The scope of delivery also includes several additional machinery and equipment for a 25% expansion of the existing particleboard lines at the Nonthaburi site. In August, Metro-Ply Group and the Siempelkamp Group signed the contract for the supply of the new MDF Line using a ContiRoll® Generation 9i with a capacity of 450.000m3/year to be installed at the Metro-Ply location in Surat Thani. Thus, both partners realize the fifth joint project in total and the second specifically in the MDF production segment.

Metro-Ply, one of the largest wood-based panel producers in Southeast Asia and the largest particleboard producer in the region, decided for a MDF plant made by Siempelkamp for the second time. The scope of supply includes the forming and latest ContiRoll® Generation 9i press line, board handling, and intermediate storage. The Siempelkamp subsidiary BÜTTNER contributes an energy plant, fiber dryer and an ESP Filter.

Pallmann, the size reduction specialist within the Siempelkamp Group, supplies the complete chipping lines for the MDF production. Pallmann and BÜTTNER will additionally supply respectively ten knife ring flakers and one drum dryer for the increase of the capacity of the particleboard lines at the Nonthaburi location by 220.000 m³/year, thus further strengthening Metro-Ply’s market position.

This order is the second MDF line that Metro-Ply placed with Siempelkamp following the order of a new forming and press line ordered end of October 2019, which went into operation in April 2021 at the Kanchanburi location. Overall, it is the fifth ContiRoll® press ordered by Metro-Ply Group. The start of assembly of the new MDF Line is planned towards the end of 3^rd quarter of 2025.

The MDF Line No. 5 will be built at the existing Metro-Ply Group site in the south of Thailand – in Surat Thani, approx. 800 km from Bangkok. This region has the highest proportion of rubberwood plantations in Thailand. Accordingly, the raw material for the plant being built there will be supplied exclusively from these wood resources.

With this new MDF Line, Metro now operates a total of six locations: Nonthaburi, Prachinburi, Surat Thani, Kanchanaburi, Rayong, in Thailand, and Wangaratta, in Australia. Siempelkamp is proud to be the continuous partner in Metro-Ply Group’s ongoing expansion plans in the Asian Pacific panel board industry in a partnership that has started more than 25 years ago.