Roundwood consumption in 2021 totalled 85.1 million solid m3 in Finland, which was 9% more than during the previous year. A total of 85% of roundwood was consumed in the manufacture of forest industry products, while the remaining proportion was used in energy generation at heating and power plants, and as fuelwood in small-scale housing. Alongside roundwood, the consumption of forest industry by-products and wood residues totalled 27.5 million m3, up by 16% from the previous year, according to the preliminary data of the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke).
“The growing demand for forest industry products and especially the increased use of forest energy drove the total consumption of unprocessed roundwood in 2021 to a record-high level in the history of the statistics,” says Tuomas Niinistö, senior statistician at Luke.
A total of 85% of all roundwood, or 72.2 million m3, was consumed by the forest industries in production. In addition, the forest industries processed a total of 9.8 million solid m3 of forest industry by-products primarily in pulp production.
“As by-products, wood is used for the second time, meaning that we are no longer talking about roundwood. Examples of by-products include chips delivered from sawmills to the pulp industry, and their volume is not included in the roundwood consumption figures,” Niinistö says.
The volume of roundwood burned as energy increased by 14% from the previous year to 12.9 million m3. In addition, 17.7 million m3 of various by-products and wood residues, including bark and logging residues, were consumed in energy generation.
The forest industries processed 62.4 million m3 of domestic roundwood and 9.8 million m3 of imported wood. The consumption of domestic roundwood increased by 9% and that of imported roundwood by 1% from the previous year.
The volume of roundwood processed by the sawmill industry increased by 10% to 30.4 million m3, accounting for more than a third of total roundwood consumption.
Nearly half of all roundwood consumed by the forest industries – 34.7 million m3 – was used in pulp manufacturing as in previous years. Imported chips accounted for 2.5 million solid m3 of all roundwood consumed by the forest industries.
The remaining imported chips – 1.9 million solid m3 – were used as energy. The volume of burned imported chips increased by three per cent from the previous year.
