EUROPE - In a meeting held June 25 by videoconference with press contacts, associate members and collaborating institutes, EPF (European Panel Federation) presented an economic review of the wood-based panels industry in 2019, drawn from the recently published EPF Annual Report 2019-2020.

In 2019, the total production of European wood-based panels posted a dip of 1.8% after five consecutive years of growth, reaching a total of 59.2 million m³.

Particleboard production increased by 0.5% to 32.1 million m³ thanks to capacity additions.

MDF contracted by 3.7% to a total of 12.1 million m³ partly due to announced capacity closures.

Oriented Strand Board (OSB), the third largest panel type by volume, declined by 0.8% to 6.8 million m³.

Softboard is the next panel type in size. It decreased by 8.6% to reach 4.7 million m³ driven by announced capacity closures.

Plywood production went down by 7.8% to 3 million m³.

Hardboard is the smallest panel type with 491,000 m³ of production in 2019, which was down by 7.3% compared to 2018.