Thailand-based wood-based panel producer Metro Ply Group has produced their first board in its new Siempelkamp particleboard plant at the Surat Thani site.
The current project includes the forming and press line including a ContiRoll in the 8ft x 40.4m format, a cooling and stacking line and a board intermediate storage.
Siempelkamp subsidiary Büttner supplied the dryer and the energy plant. Pallmann, the size reduction specialist, contributed the size reduction machines. Siempelkamp’s Belgian subsidiary Sicoplan took charge of planning the entire plant.
“During the assembly and commissioning, we and the team from Metro came together to grow into a single team. For all of us, the focus was on achieving the same goal, and we succeeded in that,” said Torsten Kengels, project manager at Siempelkamp.
The particleboard plant was built from May 2022 as a greenfield project including a completely new infrastructure. The region around Surat Thani has the greatest number of rubberwood plantations in Thailand, so the raw material for the new plant will be fed from this abundance.
As in the three previous projects, the cooperation and communication between the partners was professional and harmonious.
According to Siempelkamp, the Metro Ply Group operates a total of four particleboard plants, three of which are made by Siempelkamp, and five medium-density fibreboard (MDF) plants, two of which are made by Siempelkamp.
These plants are located in Sai Noi or Nontaburi, Kanchanaburi and now Surat Thani, Thailand’s eighth largest city.
“All of the systems that we have supplied to Metro over the past 20 years have yielded top performance to the full satisfaction of our customer,” said Marc Müller, head of commercial sales at Siempelkamp. “Our fourth project is also on the road to success and will be approved in the next few weeks.
“We congratulate the Metro team and sincerely hope that the new plant will further strengthen Metro’s first-class reputation as one of the ‘top leaders’ in the Thai wood-based materials industry.”
