Timberlink has pressed its first cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels in a significant development in Australia’s supply of mass timber products. It follows the production of the plant’s first glue-laminated timber beam in August 2023.
In July, Wood Central reported that Timberlink’s new plant would accept orders from October 2023, with full-scale production to begin later this month.
It will use local timbers from the Green Triangle pine plantations, processed at its adjoining Tarpeena facility.
Known as NeXTimber by Timberlink, “it is the only combined radiata pine facility to produce CLT and GLT in Australia,” according to David Oliver, Timberlink’s General Manager of Sales, Marketing and Corporate Affairs.
“The team has been working towards this moment,” with the facility’s construction starting in 2020, “and to see the hard work of so many come to fruition is very rewarding.”
There was an air of positivity with Patrick Dark, Timberlink’s CLT and GLT Operations Manager, on hand to see the panel finally come off the line on time.
“Everybody involved in installing, testing and commissioning our NeXTimber equipment should be proud of what we’ve accomplished.”
The newly commissioned line will produce 16M long and 3.5M wide panels with material that is the shorter links finger jointed and fed into the new plant.
In June, Wood Central reported that NeXTimber by Timberlink and domestic suppliers Xlam and Cusp add to more than 20 importers who have serviced the market in recent years.
The $63 million investment, which follows a $100 million investment in upgrading its sawmill processing facilities, “will increase our productive capacity by about 20 per cent,” Timberlink CEO Ian Tyson told ABC News last year.
“Then the material that is the shorter links will be finger jointed and fed into the new CLT plant.”
The first GLT beam produced at the plant coincided with The Seed to Structure tour – where South Australian politicians travelled to the Green Triangle to tour the Timberlink facilities.
“From our first sod turn in February 2022 to producing our first GLT beam in August 2023, we are well on our way to full production,” Mr Tyson said.
According to Oliver, the “enthusiastic and growing” uptake of the products by the construction industry is a “firm nod to moving into a sustainable future,” with timber hailed as “the ultimate sustainable resource.”
- For more information about NeXTimber and its CLT and GLT capacity, visit Timberlink’s website.
