Sveza has increased its forest lease by more than a third in 2020

Sveza Group continues to work on its own logging program. On investment terms, in 2020 the Company received a long-term lease for three plots in the Kostroma Region and Perm Territory with a total area of 184 thousand hectares, increasing its forest fund to 630 thousand hectares.

In particular, Sveza signed the first lease agreements for forest land in the Perm Territory and Kostroma Region. Agreements for a period of 49 years were concluded as part of the implementation of priority investment projects (PIP) for the modernization of wood processing infrastructure. In the Perm Territory, the Company received 65 thousand hectares in Gornozavodskoye forest district and 75 thousand hectares in Solikamskoye forest district. In addition, last fall, Sveza signed a lease agreement with the Forestry Department of the Kostroma region for a forest plot in the Kologrivskoye forest district. The area of this plot is 43.7 thousand hectares.

 

The annual volume of timber harvesting in the Kostroma region will be 172 thousand cubic meters, on two plots in the Perm Territory - 130 thousand m³.

 

Until 2020 the forest fund of Sveza grew to 445.2 thousand hectares in the Perm Territory, Sverdlovsk, Tyumen and Vologda regions. These plots were also obtained under investment conditions. In other words, at the end of 2020, Sveza's forest fund was around 630,000 hectares, having increased to more than a third.

 

All of the plots that Sveza leases are dominated by birch stands. Non-core logging assortments include softwood sawn logs and balances which are intended to be sold to large Russian and foreign timber processing companies.

 

"Sveza's business is growing and transforming - from being the largest birch plywood producer in the world, we are becoming a diversified, vertically integrated timber holding company. And the operation of such a holding company is impossible without its own resource base, which will increase the depth of processing and increase confidence in the quality and continuity of supply. In addition, we will be introducing the latest techniques for forest management and reforestation", says Alexander Protchenko, Head of Forest Management at Sveza.

 

On the leased plots, Sveza fully complies with all standards for reforestation, silvicultural and firefighting activities. The Company is committed to responsible forest management: it builds forest roads, carries out thinning operations and undertakes forest-protection measures.