Helsinki, Finland 09 April 2019 -- The UPM Chudovo plywood mill expansion investment, which started in late 2017, is proceeding on schedule to the production trial run phase. The first deliveries from the new production line are currently on the way to customers in Europe and Africa. The official inauguration will be in early September.

The investment will expand the product portfolio of the UPM Chudovo mill. One new product in Chudovo, the WISA-Birch LG, has already been produced on the new production line. LG, or Long Grained, refers to the direction of the surface grain, which is positioned parallel to the long edge of the plywood panel. In traditional WISA-Birch plywood, the graining runs in the cross-panel direction. Both are used either as structural plywood in building or as visual interior elements such as walls, floors, ceilings or cabinets.

"The applications for both cross- and long-grained plywood are very often the same. However, there are markets such as Benelux, the UK or South Korea where more long-grained plywood is used, and now UPM Chudovo's investment will enable us to seek growth in these markets," explains Jouni Töyräs, Vice President, Sales, UPM Plywood.

In addition to these WISA-Birch plywood products, the UPM Chudovo mill also produces coated WISA plywood for the transport industry and concrete forming, as well as uncoated birch plywood for insulating elements of LNG tankers.

The total value of the UPM Chudovo mill expansion investment is about EUR 50 million. The project consists of new plywood production lines, including all machinery needed for veneer and plywood manufacturing. A new bio heat boiler has also been built at the site. The mill's annual production capacity will increase by 45,000 up to 155,000 cubic meters per year and it is estimated that around 100 new jobs will be created - both directly at the mill and indirectly, in wood procurement and logistics, for example.

UPM Chudovo mill is one of the nine UPM Plywood mills. It employs directly approximately 630 people and the annual capacity is about 155,000 m3 of birch plywood. Annual birch veneer log supply is approximately 400,000 m3. All the wood for the mill is sourced from sustainably managed forests. UPM Chudovo has FSC certificate on controlled wood sourcing.

UPM Chudovo mill is the largest taxpayer and one of the biggest industrial employers in Chudovo region. The mill's history dates back to 1990 as the first Soviet-Finnish joint venture. UPM became its' sole owner in 2005. An investment project on production expansion is on-going at the mill and will be completed by September, 2019. - www.wisaplywood.com/ru

UPM Plywood

UPM Plywood offers high quality WISA® plywood and veneer products mainly for the construction and transport industries as well as UPM Grada® thermoformable wood material for the furniture and manufacturing industries. The sales of UPM Plywood in 2018 were EUR 480 million and it has about 2,400 employees, including 1,500 in Finland. UPM has six plywood mills and a veneer mill in Finland as well as plywood mills in Russia and Estonia. - www.wisaplywood.com, www.upmgrada.com

UPM

We deliver renewable and responsible solutions and innovate for a future beyond fossils across six business areas: UPM Biorefining, UPM Energy, UPM Raflatac, UPM Specialty Papers, UPM Communication Papers and UPM Plywood. We employ around 19,100 people worldwide and our annual sales are approximately EUR 10 billion. Our shares are listed on NASDAQ OMX Helsinki. UPM Biofore - Beyond fossils. www.upm.com