First rice straw-based medium density fiberboard (MDF) plant in Africa

The  first rice straw-based medium density fiberboard (MDF) plant in Africa is to be built in Egypt. The US$228m facility will be used to turn rice straw into fibreboard. The facility will be set up on a site in Beheira province, a coastal governorate located in the Nile Delta in the northern part of the North African country.

Already, two deals related to the project have been signed.  One between a newly-established state wood technology company WOTECH and the state-owned oil firm Petrojet. The second one was signed between the former (WOTECH) and Siempelkamp, a German engineering firm.

Expectations for the project

Upon completion the facility is expected to produce 205,000 square meters a year of medium-density fiberboards (MDF) that will be used in various sectors like furniture, construction, and decoration, using technologies developed by Siempelkamp.

Also Read: North Africa’s first continuous wood-based panel plant nears completion

Notably, rice is one of the most abundant crops in Egypt.  Over 2 million feddans with an average production of about 6.12 million tons per year and 9.5 tons per hectare are cultivated. The processing process yields large amounts of rice straw as residue, 80% of which is burnt in the fields.

The resulting emissions significantly contribute to air pollution called the Black Cloud that the states Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources has been fighting against over the years and which the most anticipated facility is expected to reduce significantly.

The second facility of its kind in the world

The rice straw-based medium density fiberboard (MDF) plant upon completion will be the second of its kind in the world after the CalPlant 1 agfiber panel manufacturing facility in California.

The US$315M facility is developed on a 276 acres piece of land in Willows, California, some 85 miles north of Sacramento, in an important rice-growing region.

With the capacity to process 300,000 tons of rice straw a year, the facility can produce an equivalent of 140 million square feet of 3/4-inch MDF per annum.