Currently, the annual availability of oil palm trunks (OPT) in Malaysia is estimated at around 13.6 million logs based on 100 000 ha of replanting per year. Under specific controlled processing conditions to manufacture oil palm plywood, the total logs available can be converted into 4.5 million cubic metres of plywood. A number of plywood mills have embarked on the use of OPT in the manufacture of plywood. Nevertheless, because of the weaker and less durable veneers, the application of these materials was only as a core layer. Research and development on OPT has been getting much attention from researchers and members of other wood-based industries for which this material has shown exciting potential as an alternative raw material. However, anatomically, OPT is not truly a woody material and this poses a big challenge in how to turn OPT into what has been achieved with rubber wood or other tropical wood in terms of product quality and market acceptability. This article shows that OPT can be used to produce plywood and that its strength properties meet the minimum requirements of the Japanese Standard Method, JAS 233:2003.