A fire broke out at UPM's Pietarsaari softwood/birch pulp mill in Finland on Nov. 9, collapsing a melted fibreglass vent pipe (initially reported as a chimney) and damaging a conveyor, pipes and cables on the fibre line, with the wood-chip handling area hit hardest; no one was injured. The mill was already in a maintenance shutdown that began in October, and UPM (mill director Vesa Volmari) has not yet estimated repair time, cost or whether the restart will slip (Daily Northern, EUWID)
Update: Mercer International and one non-operating subsidiary filed their prepackaged Chapter 11 petitions on Nov. 9 in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, backed by holders of ~88.6% of the senior notes; the plan cancels ~US$1.275B of notes (funded debt falls from ~US$1.6B to ~US$700M), removes more than US$100M of annual cash interest, raises US$400M through a backstopped rights offering plus a new US$300M ABL facility, with votes due Dec. 10 and emergence targeted around Dec. 31. The pulp, lumber and mass-timber operating subsidiaries are not debtors and are running normally (Pulp & Paper Canada, SEC 8-K)
JGT2 Redevelopment has revived the US$550M, 1-million-sq-ft AI data center plan for the former Androscoggin paper mill in Jay, Maine, filing amended site-location and air-emission permit applications with Maine DEP on Nov. 9 (Sentinel Data Centers as operator, deal not yet final); a public meeting is tentatively set for Dec. 10, and the mill's large paper machines have been sold to a buyer in Pakistan (Bangor Daily News)
Update: MM Group's nine-month adjusted EBITDA fell 19.1% to €259.1M on sales of €2,774.7M (−6.9%), with Board & Paper hit by competition, Middle East-linked energy costs and maintenance stops at MM Kwidzyn and MM Kotkamills; separately, closing of its purchase of RDM's Arnsberg cartonboard mill has slipped past the planned Q4 2026 (Papnews, EUWID)
SCA appointed Obbola mill manager Gustaf Nygren as head of its Containerboard & Pulp business area and member of executive management from Dec. 1, 2026; Östrand mill manager Per Strand moves to Obbola the same day (Papnews)
Sonoco's Ernest D. Haynes III (President, Global Consumer Packaging) will succeed R. Howard Coker as President & CEO on Jan. 1, 2027, joining the board; Coker retires Dec. 31 after a 41-year career (Papnews)
Forestry & Timber
Juken New Zealand has opened consultation (to 4pm Nov. 25) on selling its Kaitāia Triboard mill's land, buildings and assets to a prospective buyer — or closing it if the sale fails — with operations ending no later than mid-March 2027 either way; CEO Yasufumi Tsuchiya says no binding sale agreement has been reached, the buyer has said it would restart the mill, and JNL's Kaitāia and Wairarapa mills employ ~340 people combined (1News)
Ottawa extended its tariff-remission program for importers of counter-tariffed US goods by a year to June 30, 2028, while removing goods it says can be sourced domestically — paperboard products and aluminium wire/extrusions from Feb. 1, 2027; Fordaq's updated explainer on the US 50% Section 338 duties on Canadian wood products notes the Oct. 30 list revision added nine Chapter 44 lines (including multilayer flooring, 4418.75.70) and removed seven plywood lines under 4412.33/.34 (CKOM/CP, Fordaq)
Ian Barnes, who ran Forests NSW's Southern Region until 2011 and is a past president of the Institute of Foresters of Australia, told South Coast MP Liza Butler (copying Premier Chris Minns) that the proposed Great Southern Forest — folding 55 state forests into a reserve of almost 1.2M ha — "is the end" of his faith in Labor, as more than 120 businesses delivered an open letter to NSW Parliament (Wood Central)
Swedish roundwood stocks fell ~0.8M m³ q/q to ~9M m³ (solid under bark) at Sept. 30: coniferous sawlogs 3.4M m³ (−6%), pulpwood 4.9M m³ (−5%) and pulp chips 0.8M m³ (−24%), per the Swedish Forest Agency's Nov. 10 release (Fordaq)
Finnish sawmills produced ~8.7M m³ in January–September (−1% y/y) while January–August exports fell 3% to ~5.9M m³ (value −1% to €1.3B), with domestic fuel prices up 52% y/y in September, per Sahateollisuus (Fordaq)
Hasslacher will close Gemson GmbH's glulam special-components works in Rangersdorf, Austria for economic reasons at the end of 2026 (EUWID)
Projects started in 2026 take the US count of commercial and public mass timber buildings past 1,500, from fewer than 100 a decade ago, with timber growers pitching mass timber to data-center developers as the housing slump forces sawmill closures (Lesprom)
International Hardwood Conference, Antwerp: German beech lumber exports fell to 378,847 m³ in 2025 from 556,577 m³ in 2017, German hardwood lumber output dropped to ~850,000 m³ from ~1.25M m³ in 2019, and 34 German hardwood sawmills closed or became insolvent between 2016 and 2025, while China's share of world hardwood lumber output rose to 27% (Fordaq)
Wood Pellets & Biomass
Ruapehu District Council confirmed Data Igloo's proposed NZ$300M cold-storage data campus beside a planned 180,000-t/yr biocoal plant at the former Winstone Pulp International Karioi pulp mill in New Zealand's central North Island (up to 100 jobs); Mayor Weston Kirton called power-supply fears "scaremongering," but both projects remain in planning, the Horizons wastewater consent is undecided and Ngāti Rangi opposes it in its current form (Wood Central)
Yukon Wood Products Association executive director Peter Wright called the territory's minimal use of wood energy a "massive missed opportunity," saying environmental assessments now take at least twice as long as before; neighbouring Northwest Territories heats ~40% of government buildings with biomass, mainly wood pellets (Bioenergy Insight)
Industry Technology Vendors
Valmet — Kronospan Energy S.A. has filed a request for arbitration against Valmet Technologies Oy over the CHP3 biomass-fired heat and power plant at Sanem, Luxembourg (purchase agreement Jan. 18, 2022, taken over July 12, 2024), with preliminary claims of ~€130M (€102M loss in plant value, €23M lost profit); Valmet calls the claims unfounded, says CHP3 met the agreed performance requirements on the agreed fuel, will pursue its own claims against Kronospan, and expects no material adverse impact (Valmet, PULPAPERnews)
