Kurekss Ltd. is one of the leading sawmills in Latvia. The company’s sawmill is located in the western part of Latvia, near the ice-free port of Ventspils. The sawmill is surrounded by the largest forest massifs in Latvia.
Latvia’s forests are our country’s most valuable natural resource. Our goal and mission is to manufacture high-quality products – various types of construction timber, laths and boards – helping people create healthy and sustainable housing and environments, while treating this value of nature with the utmost respect. In addition, our task is to reduce our carbon footprint as much as possible, make efficient use of environmental resources and preserve biodiversity.
The company supports sustainable forestry policy; therefore, Kurekss Ltd. has obtained the CoC certificate FSC® (Forest Stewardship Council) C006364 and maintains compliance with the wood supply chain standard PEFC 2002:2020 (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes) PEFC/12-31-002.
The ISO 14001:2015 certificate obtained confirms that Kurekss Ltd. performs its production processes in accordance with the environmental management system standard.
Kurekss Ltd. has obtained ISO 9001:2015 “Quality management systems: certificate and implemented appropriate quality management system.
the company carried out extensive reconstruction of the planing mill, installing a new Weinig Hydromat 4300 planing machine with a maximum feed speed of 300m per minute and fast and modern setting functions that enables a quick transition between products. As part of the reconstruction, a Spanex sawdust extraction filter and aspiration system was installed, while the unit’s lines and auxiliary equipment were improved, thus increasing the unit’s processing capacity.
The sawmill packaging line was rebuilt, installing an automatic sticker stacker and replacing 2 packers with 1.
a new Agro biomass heating boiler with a capacity of 10 MW power was installed, which allows Kurekss Ltd. to produce the heat necessary for drying sawn timber with one heating device, significantly reducing emissions and electricity consumption. These improvements to the production process were co-financed by the Cohesion Fund (EUR 250,000); the total project cost was EUR 1,830,000. Project No. 4.1.1.0/18/A/004.
Kurekss Ltd. acquired wood pellet plant Kurzemes Granulas with the aim of stabilising the sales of by-products (sawdust, shavings and wood chips).
the company acquired and put into operation a Valutec TC continuous cycle drying kiln, thus increasing drying capacity and enabling fast drying of small batches of sawn timber.
several improvements were made to the planing mill, enhancing the packaging line; it was supplemented with a bundling line, a package elevator, an additional package strapping machine and an automatic wrapping outfeed unit. These improvements made it possible to produce smaller packages efficiently.
the construction of a new Springer log sorting line equipped with 120 sorting bins and a Microtec sorting system with X-ray scanner was completed, making it possible to sort sawlogs according to their quality and parameters that cannot be seen from the outside.
when the Stavelse autoclave was installed, an additional impregnation plant was set up, which made it possible to double impregnation capacity.
Kurekss Ltd. received the 2012 Latvian Forest Industry Award “Zelta čiekurs” (Golden Pine Cone) in the category of business innovation.
we modernised the planing mill lines by introducing a Weinig BKW band saw for splitting sawn timber into thickness or width.
The sorting plant was upgraded with a Finscan scanner – computer-controlled sorting machine and a Hekotek mechanisation lines. These improvements significantly increased productivity and consistency of quality.
the latest generation HEWSAW SL250 – DUO sawing equipment was installed. Its state-of-the-art computer control system enabled us to increase yield, manufacture very specific products, improve product quality, and raise productivity to more than 250,000 m3 of sawn timber per year.
During this time, the company expanded from sawn timber exportation to production and further processing. In 1997, a sawmill was purchased, the territory of which was expanded and supplemented over the years to install the first drying kilns and a boiler in 1998. In 2000, a dry timber sorting plant and a planing mill were introduced. In 2001, the added value of products was increased with chemical treatment by establishing an impregnation plant. In the following years, annual investment was made in increasing production capacity by introducing new equipment and changing existing devices to more powerful ones. In 2007, structural finger jointing was added to the types of processing.
