Blog Pirates make plywood shipping price hike January 23, 2024 / April 25, 2025 by Panu Anttila Tuesday 23 January 2024. – Three years ago, in March 2021, the container vessel Ever Given got stuck in the Suez Canal. The traffic was blocked for six days, and the main material vein from Asia to Europe was disturbed for several months. Now, the same route is crippled again. Since mid-December 2023, Houthi rebels […] Read more »
Blog Why are Chinese not buying plywood mills from Russia? June 2, 2023 / April 25, 2025 by Panu Anttila Friday 2 June 2023. – According to Yale School of Management’s list, over 1,000 companies have curtailed operations in Russia by May 2023. While the list is mainly occupied by Western companies, very few Chinese companies have stopped operations in Russia. Chinese companies don’t bear the same reputational risk as companies in the West. Last […] Read more »
Blog Plywood year 2023 January 16, 2023 / January 16, 2023 by Panu Anttila Monday 16 January 2023. – Oddly enough, predicting the 2023 plywood business landscape 2023 seems easy. The overall market sentiment is unanimous. Interest rates and inflation are high. Activity slows down. Since the pandemic started in early 2020, the wood panel market has faced surprises one after another. Even if we’d see a steady decline […] Read more »
Blog 15 mm of plywood every year November 18, 2022 / November 18, 2022 by Panu Anttila Friday 18 November 2022. – Last Tuesday earth’s population reached 8 billion. The plywood industry is not directly related to birthrate or mortality, but I started to wonder how much plywood 8 billion people consume. Is plywood consumption increasing or decreasing on a global scale? How big is my stake in total consumption? If each one […] Read more »
Blog Are crude oil and birch logs cousins? June 17, 2022 / June 17, 2022 by Panu Anttila June 17, 2022. – I guess all of us have noticed how gasoline, electricity, and food prices have increased lately. At the same time, our eyes have opened to see how massive the Russian oil exports are. And even more dramatically, how big wheat exporters both Ukraine and Russia are. If a commodity gets expensive […] Read more »
Blog New markets in Asia April 8, 2022 / July 9, 2024 by Panu Anttila April 8, 2022. – While the western trade routes fade away, the Russian authorities tell that exports will be re-directed to Asian markets. It gives a feeling like the Asians are standing still without materials, and will quickly start buying Russian products once they get the opportunity. That is hardly the case. Business deals are […] Read more »
Blog Is your staff too old for Olympics? February 11, 2022 / February 11, 2022 by Panu Anttila February 11, 2022. – The Winter Olympic Games are currently being held in China. It is great to see strong and skilled sportswomen and men competing. On average the Olympic athletes are in their mid-twenties. This year the most experienced and oldest athlete is the German speed skater Claudia Pechstein, 49. If the western world […] Read more »
Blog The next (and best) plywood mill December 17, 2021 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila December 17, 2021. – If you got today an idea to build a plywood mill, where would you put it? 100 million dollars are burning your pockets, and you want to pick the best plywood production location in the world. Your success will be measured by the return on investment (ROI) over a 30 year […] Read more »
Blog Plywood production in 2050 July 16, 2021 / February 1, 2022 by Panu Anttila July 16, 2021. – FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) publishes statistics of forest products. The figures are perhaps not super accurate, but still they illustrate the direction. The gigantic leap in global plywood production happened in the 2000s and the reason was China. China’s production grew from 11 million m3 in […] Read more »
