Siempelkamp to supply Kastamonu Entegre with longest press line in Turkey

Together at the Gebze site. Top row: Onur Nur and Mert Can Akpınar, both from Investment and Project Team, Kastamonu Entegre; second row: Bora Semiz and Harun Aydın, both from Investment and Project Team, Kastamonu Entegre; third row: İhsan Tarhan from Investment and Project Team, Kastamonu Entegre, and Ulrich Kaiser from Siempelkamp; bottom row: Hasan Akpınar, director of Global Investment and Projects, Kastamonu Entegre, Umur İzgi Kıran from Investment and Project Team, Kastamonu Entegre, and Nilgün Binbay from Siempelkamp. Involved but not in the photo: Teyfik Akdağ from Investment and Project Team, Kastamonu Entegre

Turkish wood-based panel producer Kastamonu Entegre has placed an order for an 8ft x 63.7m medium-density fibreboard (MDF) wood-based panel plant with ContiRoll. Siempelkamp claimed this makes it the longest of the 32 ContiRolls and the longest continuous press on the Turkish market, thus creating a new mega site in Turkey.

According to the definition of the Swedish-Finnish management consultancy AFRY, production sites with a raw board production capacity of more than one million m³/year with downstream finishing processes – “added value” – are referred to as mega sites in the wood-based panel industry.

Thus far, four of these mega sites exist in Turkey, all of which are equipped with Siempelkamp ContiRoll press technology. With the new production plant at the city Balıkesir, Turkey, Kastamonu Entegre is currently already developing its second mega site in Turkey. Since 2005, Kastamonu Entegre has been operating a 7ft x 42.1m ContiRoll particleboard plant with an annual output of more than 600,000m³ at the Balıkesir site in the west of the country. The other mega site is operated by Kastamonu Entegre at the location in Gebze, where high-density fibreboard (HDF), MDF and particleboard are produced as raw boards on currently three continuous press lines and various plants are operated for further processing or finishing of these products.

Siempelkamp reported that in Balıkesir, an MDF plant is now being built which will represent several superlatives. Its press length of 63.7m achieves the record of “longest ContiRoll press line in Turkey”. With 65 tons/atro per hour, the largest fibre dryer in Turkey will also be installed by Siempelkamp’s subsidiary Büttner, which ensures the optimal utilisation of the press capacity for HDF production. The Generation 9 ContiRoll press realises a wide production range: Standard MDF, as well as light MDF (L-MDF) and HDF are produced. The products are used in the furniture and flooring industries and are marketed both locally and in export markets.

The scope of delivery for Kastamonu Entegre includes the special light-board package of the ContiRoll hydraulic system. It enables the production of L-MDF and U1-LDF with gross densities of less than 500kg/m³. The wood-based panel producer is extending its lead with this new plant and is continuing on its expansion course. With the latest two investments in the city Samsun and now in Balikesir, Kastamonu Entegre will rank to position number five globally in world industry rankings.

“Our thanks go to Kastamonu Entegre for more than 50 years of continuous trust in the Siempelkamp technology as well as in our team. We would also like to extend our thanks to the great investment and project team at Kastamonu Entegre, with whom we have paved the way for this project in an extremely constructive manner. We are looking forward to successfully realising the current mega site project again with our partner and its team,” said Ulrich Kaiser, head of sales at Siempelkamp.