HS Timber Group Commissions New Sawmill in Argentina

Acon Timber, a joint venture between HS Timber Group and Belgium’s Forestcape Group, has officially commissioned a new sawmill facility located in Virasoro, Corrientes, Argentina.

The new sawmill is designed to process pine sourced regionally from sustainably managed plantations. Favored by the climatic conditions (365 days of growth per year), these pines are harvested after less than 20 years.

According to the press release, the sawmill is equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and technology. In the current stage of expansion, the plant has an annual production capacity of 370,000 m³ of dry lumber. Its lumber products are mainly exported to North and Central America, Middle East, and Asia.

In addition, connected to the sawmill is a secondary sorting system with a quality scanner and planing system. By-products (wood chips, sawdust, and wood shavings) can be further processed into pellets (current annual capacity: 132,000 tons), which are sent to Europe as ENplus certified house fire pellets.

The heat required for drying the sawn and residual timber is generated in two 20 MW biomass boilers from the resulting bark and locally sourced biomass. As in all HS Timber Group plants, emphasis is placed on the full use of the raw material true to “zero waste,” the company said.