Hanam Canada Corporation

Resin and Formaldehyde Technology

Hanam Canada is experienced in all facets of resin and formaldehyde plant design engineering, operation, and marketing. We have designed new and upgraded resin plants for the leading resin manufacturing companies in the world. We frequently get involved in the early stages of a project and help tailor manufacturing technologies to customer requirements.

Hanam Canada has completed formaldehyde or resin plant projects for many companies including:

Hanam Canada's experience and knowledge of used equipment gives customers the benefit of high quality production at minimum cost. Our resin plants have been built at a quarter of the cost of competitive plants because we use the latest technology combined with recycled equipment. On most projects, we work in the engineering department of the host plant and provide process and mechanical design engineering that makes efficient use of local plant engineering and contractors. We later designed several expansions and upgrades of some of these plants.  Some were a green field plants, others were located inside an existing commercial building.

The market for panel board adhesives in the US and Canada is 2.5 million tonnes per year valued at $700 million per year as summarized in table 1. Urea formaldehyde resins make up 36%, phenolic liquids 30%, isocyanates 24%, and phenolic powder 10% of sales value. There are 40 potential board plant customers with 71 mill locations. The resin used in US and Canada is about a fifth of the world total.

Table 1.  Resin market size Canada & the US 

Although overall UF resin use for particleboard is growing, many small particleboard plants have recently closed. Some closed because wood costs increased and others could not to meet new air emission standards. Several particleboard plants owned by furniture companies closed due to competition from China. One plant became a distribution point for panels produced in Mexico. Only Webb Furniture, Galax, VA, and Paliser, Winnipeg, Manitoba, still make their own particleboard. CMI Craftmaster, Towanda, PA and Rodman Industries, Oconomowoc, WI, switched to liquid phenolic resin and several small plants in the Oregon switched to specialty products.  In the US and Canada, phenolic resin containing boards are exempt from formaldehyde emission testing. However tighter emission standards are starting to be applied in some states such as California that are impacting on particle board resin use.

The dominant resin supplier is Hexion with 35% market share as shown in Table 2. Arclin is second with 18%. More than half of Georgia Pacific’s production is for their own mills. Unibord produces 70,000 t/y and Flakeboard produces 25,000 t/y of UF resin for their own MDF and particleboard plants. Uniboard also buy resin from Hexion and Flakeboard’s Sault Saint Marie plant buys from GP.  Hexion and Arclin supply about an equal number of companies but Hexion supplies the most mills and the biggest customers. Both Hexion and Dynea have good geographical coverage with 15 and 12 plant locations respectively. Georgia Pacific has 7 plants but supplies only 5 companies and are the most vulnerable to competition.  

Table 2. Panel Board Resin Market Share

Buyers seem quite loyal to their suppliers. Louisiana Pacific seems strongly loyal to Hexion and Huntsman. Weyerhaeuser and Ainsworth buy from Hexion, Arclin, Huntsman and BASF. Norbord buys from GP and Arclin. Grant buys from Tembec and Arclin. Huber buys exclusively from Bayer. Bayer does not sell PMDI to any other company, only Huber.

Potential board plant customers in the US and Canada are listed in table 3 in order of resin purchases. Weyerhauser, Georgia Pacific and Louisiana Pacific use 14, 11 and 10% of the total resin respectively. Unibord, Ainsworth, and Temple use 9, 6 and 5% respectively.  Many of the particleboard plants are owned by lumber companies that built them as an outlet for waste shavings and sawdust.

Table 3.  Resin Buyers 

The typical usage and average delivered price of resins are compared in Table 4. Liquid urea formaldehyde and phenolic resins are cheapest. Resin usage and prices vary significantly by region, wood feed stock, competition, and individual mill quality targets. 

Table 4. Resin Usage & Price Comparison