2022 was another turbulent year for Austrian and German manufacturers of solid structural timber. The industry describes 2022 as an “extremely challenging” year, in which “the annual profit was made in the first few months”, which “bottom line was not great, but not so bad either”.
After an excellent first quarter, demand fell strongly, and manufacturers only reported a noticeable recovery of the market and rising prices in December 2022.
4% of growth
Against this background, manufacturers expected production to grow by 9% in March 2022. In fact, in this year’s production survey, Holzkurier determined an increase of nearly 4% to 3.12 million m³ of solid structural timber, of which 2.5 million m³ were produced in Germany and 615,000 m³ in Austria. As for 2023, the industry’s target is a further 5.5% increase in production and a total output of 3.29 million m³. That would set another record and mark the eighth consecutive year of growth.
Utilizing production capacities
In 2022, the biggest increases in production were recorded by Ante-Holz (+50,000 m³), Cordes (+10,000 m³), Rettenmeier (+20,000 m³) and the two industry newcomers Schrage Holz (+17,000 m³) and Bruno Ruhdorfer (+6,500 m³). Already in 2021, the Ante Group put a CLT plant with an annual capacity of 100,000 m³ into operation in Berga. The plant can also produce up to 50,000 m³ of solid structural timber a year.
Cordes Holz and affiliated Rettenmeier Holzindustrie made large-scale investments in state-of-the-art glulam lines, which can also be used to produce solid structural timber, at two of the biggest KVH production sites in Germany (Bremerhaven, Hirschberg).
In 2022, Bruno Ruhdorfer launched a solid structural timber plant with a one-shift capacity of 15,000 m³ in Straßburg in Carinthia, while Schrage Holz entered the market already in 2021 following a devastating fire in the company's sawmill.
