The US and North Carolina sued Domtar Paper Company (filed Sept. 16) over dioxin, furan and mercury contamination from the former Weyerhaeuser Plymouth wood-treating Superfund site at its Martin County, N.C. mill, affecting Welch Creek, the Roanoke River and Albemarle Sound; a $1.75M consent decree funding wetland and floodplain restoration is pending after public comment, and Domtar is reserving comment until the comment period closes (WCTI, Public Radio East)
Washington State Sen. Jeff Wilson (R-Longview) will introduce legislation in January to put above-ground chemical storage tanks at paper mills under Department of Ecology oversight with fines of up to $5,000/day, after the May 26 white-liquor tank collapse at Nippon Dynawave Packaging in Longview killed 11 workers and injured 8; the CSB's August report found the tank had been flagged as unsafe in contractor evaluations since October 2025 (OPB)
A fire broke out in elevated external structures at International Paper's Cason Road facility in Lowndes County (Columbus), Mississippi around 7:30 p.m. Sept. 22; crews kept it out of the main building, no injuries were reported and the cause is under investigation (WCBI)
Forestry & Timber
The Swedish Forest Agency forecasts 2026 gross felling of 84.6M m³sk, down 2.4M m³sk (3%) from a preliminary 87.0M m³sk in 2025 and the lowest since 2012, with coniferous sawlogs off ~1.3M m³fub (−4%) and pulpwood ~0.8M m³fub (−2%) as storms Johannes and Dave disrupt normal timber flows (Fordaq)
EU softwood lumber exports to MENA fell 13.8% to 4.38M m³ (value −14.1% to €1.00B) in January–July 2026 on sharp losses in Saudi Arabia, Morocco and the Gulf, only partly offset by Egypt and Algeria (Global Wood Markets Info)
Versowood CEO and owner Ville Kopra says Austrian groups' expansion into Finnish sawmilling reflects Finland's weakening competitiveness rather than simply an appetite for timber (Global Wood Markets Info); separately, Finland's Tervolan Saha is adding three batch kilns and upgrading existing dryers after its earlier sawmill expansion (Global Wood Markets Info)
Karl Hedin has put more than 2,000 ha of forest land across six properties in Dalarna, Västmanland and Örebro on the market via Areal, part of a broader reshaping of his timber and forest holdings (Global Wood Markets Info)
Germany's HPE pallet-wood price index was flat in September (110.19, −0.1% m/m) but remains 13.6% above a year ago, with packaging solid wood +7.1%, OSB +10.6% and plywood +7.1% y/y (Jan. 2026 = 100) (Fordaq)
EOS, Germany's DeSH and Abalon Hardwood met MEP Martin Häusling on Sept. 22 to press for policy conditions that keep European hardwood logs processed domestically, warning that raw-log exports outside the EU shift sawing, drying and further-processing value abroad (Fordaq)
Vietnam's wood and wood-product exports reached US$11.69B in January–August (+5%), with the US still ~50% of shipments but down 5.8% y/y through July while China surged 46.4% to US$1.54B (Fordaq)
Wood framing held a 94% share of the 1,005,000 US single-family homes completed in 2025 (947,000 homes), with concrete at a post-2015 low of 53,000 (5.3%) and steel up 25% to 5,000 as steel spread beyond the South, per NAHB's read of Census data (Wood Central)
Segezha Group and Arkhangelsk legislators are urging Moscow to let leaseholders hire private surveyors until March 2030 and to drop lease-cancellation clauses, as state agency Roslesinforg runs 3–12 months behind on mandated forest inventories; only 16.5% of Russia's production and protection forests have current survey data (Wood Central)
TimberHP (Madison, Maine) published ISO 21930/14025-verified EPDs showing stored biogenic carbon exceeds cradle-to-gate emissions for its TimberBoard, TimberBatt and TimberFill wood-fibre insulation, made from regional residual wood fibre (Fordaq)
CAL FIRE awarded $10M to 17 Business and Workforce Development projects, including redevelopment of a former mill site in Siskiyou County, sawmill modernization, biomass processing, forestry equipment and prescribed-fire workforce training; the program has now funded 131 projects with $129M over five years (KDRV, YubaNet)
Co-generation at Mills
Delorean Corporation reports it has completed the concept stage of its Opal-funded (up to A$2M) feasibility study for an anaerobic-digestion biogas plant at Opal's Maryvale paper mill in Victoria, an early step ahead of detailed engineering and commercial work on renewable gas for the mill (Stockhead via The Daily Telegraph, Kalkine)
Industry Technology Vendors
Valmet — Will supply a complete coated board line to an unnamed Asian producer for start-up in 2028: stock preparation, board machine from headboxes to reel and winders, automation, digital services, machine clothing and spares; the order is booked in Q3 2026 and its value is undisclosed (PULPAPERnews, PR Newswire)
Jartek — Won a repeat thermal-modification kiln order from a US customer and its first major African project: three kilns for Sefeccam's Douala, Cameroon sawmill, which will produce thermally modified fraké ("SanghaWood") with LDCwood (Lemahieu Group) and RTT Houtimport (Global Wood Markets Info)
Valutec — Supplying three new batch kilns plus upgrades to existing dryers at Tervolan Saha ja Höyläämö in Finland (Global Wood Markets Info)
Emtec Electronic — Will show its wet-end and paper testing instruments (CAS charge analyzer, FPA fiber potential analyzer, DFA, EST12, TSA, PDA and ACA ash analyzer) at ABTCP in São Paulo (Oct. 6–8, booth 131/133) and MIAC in Lucca (Oct. 7–9, booth A20) (PULPAPERnews)
