Metsä Group to End Production at Its Suolahti, Finland, Plywood Mill in Phases

On Wednesday, Metsä Group announced that the statutory negotiations concerning Metsä Wood’s Suolahti plywood mill, which began in October, have ended. After the statutory negotiations, the company has decided to close down the operations of the birch plywood mill by the end of 2025Q1, and operations at the spruce plywood mill will end by the end of 2026 at the latest.

Metsä Group initially announced the decision to close the mill in mid-October. The mill has an annual production capacity of 35,000 m³ of birch plywood and 160,000 m³ of spruce plywood.

The statutory negotiations at the Suolahti mill concerned all the plywood mill’s employees—about 370 people in total—and covered the reasons for the closure of the plywood mill and the personnel arrangements resulting from the planned closure. The permanent personnel of the Suolahti mill will be offered the opportunity to work in other Metsä Group units.

In a statement, Jaakko Anttila, Executive Vice President at Metsä Wood, said:

“The reason to end production at the Suolahti mill is based on its poor profitability. We are closing down the mill in stages to better enable the employment of personnel within Metsä Group.”