In early June, Borgs received certification from the EWPAA to make 19mm General Purpose particleboard flooring at our Mt Gambier site on our PB2 line. Flooring has been made before at Mt Gambier on a smaller line, but the PB2 certification will provide more volume potential, plus more flexibility in sizes. Most notably it will allow us to manufacture a 19mm x 2700 x 800 sheet size, with the 2700mm length being an optimum length requested by those making flooring cassettes. It minimises waste and speeds up the fabrication process by minimising the cutting back of 3600mm long sheets. We have already received some keen interest from a few fabricators manufacturing floor cassettes, and we hope to be making this size soon. Right now, we can only make 19mm GP grade, but that covers over 60% of our flooring sales.
Borgs purchased the Mt Gambier particleboard site January 2018, and we are pleased to confirm the site is being prepared for a major upgrade in the near future. It will be built on a currently vacant block, meaning the construction will not impact our existing production in Mt Gambier. Upon completion we simply switch on the new press line and switch off the older lines. The existing 4 press lines are spread across 2 different sites in town and were commissioned between 1965 and 1982. While functional, the technology is outdated and the single new press line will have a far greater capacity than the existing 4 lines combined.
And of course, the new Mt Gambier site will be designed to be fully capable of using waste wood as furnish, with clean offcuts from truss plants being the best waste wood available. We are already growing the wood recovery capability at our Oberon NSW site, so when Mt Gambier is functional, we will have a great solution for the south-east region also. We continue to invest significantly in the technology, recovery sites, and specially designed trailers, required to maximise the efficiency of this wood waste program and ultimately make it a winner for all stakeholders in the supply chain.
The Mt Gambier particleboard site is an important part of the Green Triangle region. It utilises forest thinnings, treetops, and other residual wood (chip, savings, dust) with limited other uses, thus improving the efficiency of the local sawmilling operations.
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