Roseburg Forest Products announced a planned investment of $700 million over the next four years to upgrade and expand its manufacturing operations in southern Oregon. The investment includes the creation of two new manufacturing plants, and technological improvements and upgrades at existing plants in Douglas and Coos counties.

“Across the business, Roseburg is embracing advanced manufacturing and leveraging new technology and methods to make our current products and develop new ones, with the goal of ensuring we remain competitive in the global market,” Roseburg president and CEO Grady Mulbery said in a prepared statement.

The investment includes two new highly technical manufacturing plants at Roseburg Forest Products’ Dillard Complex, located just south of Roseburg, Ore. Dillard MDF will use wood residuals from Roseburg’s local mills as well as other regional mill suppliers to manufacture standard medium density fiberboard panels and thin high density fiberboard. The plant will product panels with a thickness from 2mm to 28 mm.

“HDF is a new product for Roseburg that meets growing customer demand for domestically manufactured panels of increasing thinness and strength,” Mulbery said. “Dillard MDF will be one of the most technologically advanced plants of its kind in the world, and it alone represents $450 million of our $700 million investment.”

Dillard Components will convert specialty MDF panels manufactured at Roseburg’s MDF plant in Medford, Ore., into Armorite Trim, a finished exterior trim product. Roseburg will invest roughly $50 million in this plant.

According to Roseburg, following the investments, the two plants will be capable of producing 175 million square feet of PDF panels per year, 70 million square feet per year of Primed Armorite, and 90 million feet per year of interior molding.

The remaining $200 million of the investment will go towards improvements at existing Roseburg plants in Oregon over the next four years, including upgrades at its plywood plant in Riddle, Ore., and a new dryer at its plywood plant in Coquille, Ore.

“These operations are all key parts of our integrated platform in Oregon, starting with our timberlands, and including our primary processing plants making lumber and plywood, as well as our secondary plants that use wood residuals like sawdust and chips to make value-added products such as MDF, ensuring the full utilization of our precious timber resource,” Roseburg’s director of government affairs Eric Geyer said.