It was projects aplenty at the sixth Panel & Engineered Lumber International Conference & Expo (PELICE) held April 13-14 at the Omni Hotel at CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

The event, hosted by Panel World magazine, included 36 speaker presentations and 94 equipment and technology exhibitors in the Grand Ballroom North of the Omni Hotel. More than 400 industry personnel were on hand.

First day keynoters Roy O. Martin III of RoyOMartin, Jim Salchenberg of Roseburg Forest Products, and Eric Christensen and Norm Voss of Swiss Krono USA set the tone for the conference with their presentations on their companies’ respective projects—RoyOMartin’s OSB plant in Corrigan, Texas; Roseburg’s LVL plant in Chester, SC; and Swiss Krono’s HDF plant in Barnwell, SC.

Roy O. Martin III addresses the Corrigan OSB project.

Jim Salchenberg talks about Roseburg’s new LVL mill.

Eric Christensen speaks about Swiss Krono’s new Barnwell MDF/HDF facility.

“Those presentations got it going and the conference picked up momentum from there,” comments Rich Donnell, co-chairman of PELICE and editor-in-chief of Panel World magazine. “What I was really pleased about was the attendance from such a diverse range of producer companies, structural and non-structural, and I felt PELICE had more attendance from Canadian companies and overseas firms than it ever has.”

The conference featured numerous technical and product sessions, and none was better attended than the series of talks on mass plywood panel and cross laminated timber delivered respectively by executives with Freres Lumber and IB X-Lam as industry personnel continue to eye developments with those products.

Among the producer companies in tow:

—Albany International, Arauco, Bioestibas, ATCO Wood Products, Coastal Forest Industries, Coastland Wood Industries, Freres Lumber, Georgia-Pacific, Hood Industries, Huber Engineered Woods, Hunt Forest Products, IB X-Lam, Louisiana-Pacific, Norbord, North American Plywood Corp., Pacific WoodTech, Parr Lumber, Proteca Group, Rayonier, Republic Elite, Roseburg Forest Products, Scotch Plywood, RoyOMartin, Shaw Industries, Swiss Krono, Tolko Industries, Truax Veneer and Weyerhaeuser.

Read more coverage of PELICE 2018 in the July issue of Panel World.

The next PELICE is scheduled for Thursday-Friday, March 12-13, 2020.