Sticking to the principle of maximum openness, EGGER organized another press trip to its plant in Gagarin.
27/12/2016
The traditional trip for journalists from industry and regional publications to the EGGER plant in the Smolensk region was timed to coincide with the launch of the second stage of the enterprise. Most of the press tour participants have already visited Gagarin more than once. In October 2015, they came to watch the construction of a new production building. A year later, the boldest of them climbed the chip conveyor that served them as a kind of observation deck, from where they were able to see all the changes from a bird's-eye view. Production floors, warehouses, offices and utility buildings have been built, as well as an access railroad, an electrical substation, a drying room and a biomass boiler house.
The main facility that was shown to media representatives is the MDF/HDF production plant, the most modern enterprise in the EGGER Group with a production capacity of 350,000 cubic meters per year. The construction of the new plant became the largest EGGER's investment project in Russia in more than 10 years of the company's presence in the Russian market. In the second stage, a floor covering line with a capacity up to 15 million sq.m per year, the fifth lamination line with an annual capacity of 8.7 million sq. m, a warehouse with the area of 8611 sq. m, that can hold 23 487.1 cubes of MDF, have been launched.
Today EGGER's industrial site in Gagarin already occupies 18 hectares. But it's too early to finish the plant expansion. The construction of the floor coverings warehouse with the area of 9200 sq. m still continues. The launch of the second line of impregnation is planned for 2017, and another flooring line is being installed, which will be the second most powerful in the world.
“The implementation of further plans, including the increase of the MDF/HDF plant capacity to 600,000 cubic meters per year, will depend on the situation on the market,” says Peter Weismayr, CEO of the LLC “EGGER Drevprodukt Gagarin”. – We’ll need only a few months and very little financial resources to implement what we have planned. We already have the base for further expansion of capacities.”
EGGER has been manufacturing products in the town of Shuya, Ivanovo region, since 2005. The grand opening of the factory took place in may 2006. The production capacity of the plant is 270,000 m³ of chipboard and 14 million sq. m of laminated boards per year. In 2011, the Shuya plant invested in the construction of a calendering line for thin chipboard production with a capacity of 50,000 m³.
In 2011, EGGER acquired a plant in Gagarin, Smolensk region. The production capacity of the enterprise is more than 530,000 m³ of chipboards and 25 million sq. m of laminated boards per year. In 2014, a new board laminating line was launched at the Gagarin plant.
The decision to build an MDF plant was made in early 2013. The project realization cost more than 250 million euro. In total, EGGER family invested about 500 million euro over 11 years of its presence in Russia.