The name PG Bison may not be well known outside the timber industry, but it is one that will soon be featuring prominently in the Eastern Cape’s economic revival.

The company, a subsidiary of the country’s largest furniture manufacturer Steinhoff Africa, opened a new R119-million sawmill in George a week ago.

In a few months it is also expected to host the sod-turning for a R1,3-billion chipboard factory in the Ugie-Maclear region.

The group has already bought 33 000ha of forests in the area for this plant, and expects to create up to 3 000 jobs.
Chipboard is used mainly in furniture manufacture and the building industry.

Another industry in which the company has invested is that of wooden poles. This facility is about 90 minutes west of Port Elizabeth in Kareedouw, where 2 500m³ to 3 000m³ of poles are produced every month.

About 80% of production involves building and fencing poles, while other applications include telephone and power transmission poles, explains plant manager Neels Scholtz.

The majority of production, 70% in total, is exported to Namibia, Algeria, Yemen and Mauritius. Scholtz said export orders to these countries were booked up until September.

The benefit of being in this market, he explained, was that the volumes required was about 10 times that of Eskom, one of their biggest clients.

He related the quirky tale of how the factory came to be located in Kareedouw. It was established in the early 1960s when the decision was taken to supply electricity to nearby Joubertina.

This process required transmission poles, which led to the creation of the pole plant.

Weather conditions closer to Joubertina are unsuitable for pole production, while the timber is sourced from across a range of mountains to the east of Kareedouw.

The pole production process itself is more than simply cutting down trees and stripping them of bark. The planting of the pine saplings is the start of life as a pole, with careful consideration given to the density of plantings per hectare to ensure the best growth.

These trees are then pruned three times over their lifespan – which is generally 30 years – to produce the best quality product. The plantations are also thinned out systematically to produce the best growth.

The longest poles produced are about 18 metres in length, and these are used by Eskom for transmission poles.

PG Bison Poles sources its timber from MTO, which manages 14 plantations between Port Elizabeth and Cape Town.

The entire process, from delivery of the cut poles to the final product, is about 200 hours, explained Scholtz.

The timber is first checked for quality before it undergoes a rigorous mechanical debarking and peeling process.

The yard is abuzz with activity as workers dart from one pile of stacked wood to another, transporting the cut logs in mechanical claws attached to fork- lift type vehicles.

The cleaned poles are then dried, either in the open or in a kiln, to reduce the moisture content to no more than 25%.
Depending on the orders, the poles then undergo various treatments of either creosote or copper-chrome-acetate.

Scholtz explained that the timber market was coming under increasing pressure as the natural resource was becoming more scarce.

This situation was exacerbated by the fires experienced in the region last year when about 50% of the 31 000ha plantations in the area were destroyed.

Some of the trees can still be used for certain applications, but this has certainly had a serious effect on operations.

Scholtz is confident of future prospects, however, especially as alternative materials such as plastic and even steel have proved not to be as resilient as that provided by mother nature.