Arauco completed its share agreement for the purchase of 50% of the Spanish company Tafisa, a subsidiary of Portuguese group Sonae Industria, as the company said in the press release received by Lesprom Network.
This is an important chapter in the history of Arauco, as it marks the beginning of its operations in Europe and South Africa. With this $150 million investment the newly formed company,Sonae-Arauco, will manufacture and sell OSB, MDF and particleboard panels, as well as sawn timber.
This equates to an additional 12 production facilities operating in Spain, Portugal, Germany and South Africa. In total these facilities provide employment to 3,000 people and have a panel production output of 2.37 million ft2(4.2 million m3).
With these assets, the combined annual capacity of the Arauco wood panel business will reach 5.09 million ft2(9 million cubic metres), ranking Arauco as the second largest producer globally.
