The 20 largest sawmills in Europe are planning on producing a total of almost 37.3 million m³ of softwood lumber this year. This would top the respectable result of previous year - 35.7 million m³ - by an additional 5% or 1.6 million m³. With this, the top businesses of the sawmill sector are aiming to grow twice as much as the EU's GDP (+2.3%). The main reasons: booming overseas markets and a solid growth rate in Europe.
From 11th to 2nd place
The most apparent change in the Timber-Online survey is the jump Binderholz made: The sawyer moved up nine places from the 11th to the 2nd place in the ranking of the largest sawmills. Due to the integration of the three sawmill locations of Klenk Holz, their total production now amounts to 3.2 million m³ of softwood lumber in 2018.
The Ilim league: from 800,000 m³/yr
Using the output per production as a benchmark for efficiency, Ilim Timber is a league of its own. Their 800,000 m³ per location are unique - apart from the large single production sites of Ziegler (900,000 m³/yr) and Mercer (770,000 m³/yr), the Russian-German enterprise is operating the most high-output sawmills in the whole of Europe.
Still number 9 in Europe is Holzindustrie Schweighofer. "Still" in this case refers to their procurement difficulties in Romania. Currently, the company is dependent on damaged timber imports from all over Europe. Block trains are coming in from the damage zones in Slovenia, Slovakia, Poland, or Germany. Holzindustrie Schweighofer could however strengthen its position with new constructions.
| Ranked according to target 2018, in 1000 m³ | |||||||
| Rank 2018 |
Company | Country⁶ | Number of sawmills |
2016 | 2017 | 2018 (target) |
Change 2017/2018 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stora Enso¹ | FI | 19 |
4600 | 4930 | 5050 | 2 |
| 2 | Binderholz + Klenk Holz² | AT | 7 | 1550 | 2900 | 3200 | 93 |
| 3 | Ilim Timber³ | DE | 2 | 1520 | 1600 | 1650 | 3 |
| 4 | Pfeifer Holz | AT | 6 | 2050 | 2100 | 2200 | 5 |
| 5 | SCA Timber | SE | 5 | 2000 | 2090 | 2150 | 3 |
| 6 | Moelven Group¹ | NO | 17 | 2110 | 2000 | 2200 | 10 |
| 7 | Metsä Fibre | FI | 7 | 1800 | 1860 | 1860 | 0 |
| 8 | Södra Timber¹ | SE | 7 | 1900 | 1840 | 1900 | 3 |
| 9 | Holzindustrie Schweighofer | RO | 4 | 2000 | 1800 | 1800 | 0 |
| 10 | Mayr-Melnhof Holz | AT | 3 | 1700 | 1700 | 1800 | 6 |
| 11 | Vida Timber¹ | SE | 8 | 1480 | 1700 | 1820 | 7 |
| 12 | Rettenmeier Holzindustrie¹ | DE | 5 | 1400 | 1700 | 1800 | 6 |
| 13 | Setra Group¹ | SE | 9 | 1650 | 1650 | 1700 | 3 |
| 14 | UPM Timber¹ | FI | 4 | 1400 | 1400 | 1450 | 4 |
| 15 | Versowood | FI | 4 | 1300 | 1350 | 1350 | 0 |
| 16 | Fruytier Group⁴ | BE | 11 | 1230 | 1330 | 1380 | 4 |
| 17 | BSW Timber¹ | UK | 8 | 1250 | 1130 | 1200 | 6 |
| 18 | Ziegler Holzindustrie⁵ | DE | 1 | 910 | 960 | 990 | 3 |
| 19 | Karl Hedin¹ | SE | 5 | – | 860 | 900 | 5 |
| 20 | Ante-Holz⁵ | DE | 2 | 740 | 770 | 910 | 18 |
| Total | 33,817* | 35,670 | 37,270 | 5 | |||
