Valinge Gears Up for Fiber Floor Production

Viken, Sweden, Oct. 14, 2010--Valinge said it is planning to increase production of wood fiber floors as several of its licensees are planning to launch powder-based wood fiber floors in Europe and the U.S. next year.

The company said that new advanced equipment will allow it to increase capacity from 3 million square meters to 30 million.

Valinge said it will initially supply its licensees the powder for their new floors from a new automatic powder production line in Viken, which is under installation and is planned to be fully operational early next year.

The new line uses technology to mill wood fibers into fine powder, which is mixed with binders, aluminium oxide,  pigments and other decorative materials to batches according to each licensees specifications.

"We are continuously improving our powder technology and are convinced that this new product category will capture considerable market shares in the first stage from the premium laminate market and from ceramic floors," said Valinge CEO Darko Pervan.

"We believe therefore that powder will in the future most probably replace paper in a major part of all laminate floors and in all price categories in the same way as DPL replaced HPL.”