Stora Enso will permanently close its cross-laminated timber production unit at Gruv\u00f6n in Sweden by the end of 2026, confirming plans announced in September after completing negotiations on the closure. Approximately 80 positions will be affected.<\/p>\n
The decision, announced on 22 October, ends CLT production at a plant commissioned in 2019. Stora Enso said market growth had been slower than expected in recent years, while rising wood costs and relatively high fixed production costs had continued to undermine profitability.<\/p>\n
Negotiations over the consequences for personnel will continue. The company said no redundancies would be implemented before those talks had concluded.<\/p>\n
Employees will be offered support including relocation assistance, career transition coaching and opportunities to move to other Stora Enso locations. Jonas Lindqvist, head of Business Unit Skoghall, said the company would work with its other sites and relevant stakeholders to identify employment opportunities.<\/p>\n
The closure concerns the CLT unit. Deliveries of sawn goods from Gruv\u00f6n will continue as usual. Stora Enso will supply CLT customers from \u017dd\u00edrec in the Czech Republic and Ybbs and Bad St. Leonhard in Austria.<\/p>\n
A EUR 45 million investment closes seven years after start-up<\/strong><\/p>\n As GWMI previously reported, Gruv\u00f6n was built during a period of rapid investment in European CLT capacity, when producers expected timber construction to generate substantially more demand.<\/p>\n The Swedish unit entered commercial production in the first quarter of 2019 following an investment of EUR 45 million. It was originally designed for approximately 100,000 m\u00b3 of annual CLT capacity and created around 60 jobs. Later company documentation listed capacity at approximately 110,000 m\u00b3.<\/p>\n Its closure will therefore remove roughly 100,000\u2013110,000 m\u00b3 of nominal annual capacity from Stora Enso\u2019s production network. That figure represents installed capacity, rather than the volume the plant was producing before the decision.<\/p>\n Stora Enso continued expanding after Gruv\u00f6n opened. In 2020, it approved a EUR 79 million investment in a CLT plant at \u017dd\u00edrec, where production began in 2022. That facility was designed to reach around 120,000 m\u00b3 a year after ramp-up.<\/p>\n The three sites retained by Stora Enso have combined published annual capacity of approximately 310,000 m\u00b3: 120,000 m\u00b3 at \u017dd\u00edrec, 110,000 m\u00b3 at Ybbs and 80,000 m\u00b3 at Bad St. Leonhard. Actual output depends on utilisation, product specifications and operating conditions.<\/p>\n The Austrian plants have much longer production histories. Bad St. Leonhard began producing CLT in 2008, while Ybbs followed in 2012. Both had passed one million cubic metres of cumulative production or deliveries by 2026, according to the company information reviewed in GWMI\u2019s earlier report.<\/p>\n Demand has fallen short of the investment plans<\/strong><\/p>\n Gruv\u00f6n was one of several large European CLT projects commissioned between 2019 and 2022. Pfeifer started production at Schlitz in Germany in 2019 following an investment of around EUR 25 million. The first stage provided approximately 50,000 m\u00b3 of annual capacity, with a further expansion planned from the outset.<\/p>\n KLH opened its second factory at Bad St. Leonhard in Austria in 2021, adding approximately 125,000 m\u00b3 of annual capacity. Binderholz also expanded its CLT operations at Unternberg and Burgbernheim, which have combined published capacity of around 320,000 m\u00b3 a year.<\/p>\n These investments increased the volumes European producers could supply before the construction slowdown restricted orders. Gruv\u00f6n\u2019s closure now takes capacity out of that production base.<\/p>\n For CLT manufacturers, delayed building projects can leave sizeable gaps in factory schedules. Orders commonly involve engineering, machining and delivery programmes prepared for individual buildings. When a project is postponed, its production slot cannot always be filled quickly with another order.<\/p>\n That makes utilisation particularly important at plants with high fixed costs. The market may continue to grow over time while still failing to generate enough orders to keep every existing factory operating profitably.<\/p>\n Higher wood costs add to the pressure<\/strong><\/p>\n Stora Enso\u2019s explanation also points to the cost of the wood entering the production process. As GWMI previously reported, higher Nordic sawlog prices have increased costs for sawmills and the dried, graded lumber used to manufacture CLT.<\/p>\n CLT production adds finger-jointing, planing, adhesive application, pressing and, depending on the order, CNC machining and other preparation. Producers must recover those costs through sales into a construction market where developers are also comparing concrete, steel and hybrid building systems.<\/p>\n Concentrating orders at fewer factories can improve utilisation, although Stora Enso has not disclosed the expected savings from the Gruv\u00f6n closure or how its orders will be divided among the remaining sites.<\/p>\n The company continues to describe itself as Europe\u2019s largest CLT producer. Its decision leaves three factories serving the market, including Nordic customers previously supplied from Sweden, while Gruv\u00f6n continues its<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Stora Enso will permanently close its cross-laminated timber production unit at Gruv\u00f6n in Sweden by the end of 2026, confirming plans announced in September after completing negotiations on the closure. Approximately 80 positions will be affected.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":100374,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5204],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n