Recent Articles

There were no injuries sustained from the fire.

Domtar's Kingsport Mill recently produced its first 100% recycled containerboard. The milestone marks the culmination of a two-year, $350 million investment project to convert the former uncoated freesheet paper mill into Domtar's first 100% recycled packaging facility.

Nobody was injured but the mill was shut down as a result.

Fibre-based consumer packaging leader Graphic Packaging International ('Graphic Packaging') has announced it is moving its Bristol, UK beverage packaging manufacturing operations to a new, state-of-the-art facility nearby, creating up to 30 new jobs in the process.

Mercer International Inc. reports that, due to a lack of appropriate fiber availability, its Celgar mill in British Columbia, Canada, is planning to take approximately three weeks of downtime. This curtailment is expected to commence in March 2023.

Amcor announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Shanghai-based MDK. MDK generates annual sales of approximately $50 million and is a leading provider of medical device packaging, a key priority growth segment for Amcor.

In the Wall Street Journal last Wednesday, there was a discussion on the decisions made by big oil. One had to read several stories to put it together, but the exercise was worthwhile and instructive. On the one hand, Chevron and Exxon have been following a strategy of staying the course and have been rewarded with eye-popping profits. On the other, BP has moved towards a mitigating climate change, ESG strategy and not performed so well. Just my luck, the one I owned in my little stock portfolio that my wife allows me to play with is BP. In the pulp and paper industry, senior management has the same sorts of decisions to make and I am not talking about climate change and ESG. What I mean is this--do you follow the crowd or do you chart your own path?

Family first, career comes in last

The PM40 closed Friday, 3 February 2023, at 5614.

Get the latest PM40 updates by listening to the weekly Nips show and the PM40 Daily Show on Pulp & Paper Radio International.

The PM40 closed 3 February 2023 up 24.4% from the 4 February 2022 level.

In this issue of Disconnected Comparisons, we evaluate 3M and Resolute Forest Products.

Port Hawkesbury Paper Wind has submitted a proposal to the province to construct a 29-turbine wind farm.

Smurfit Kappa has announced a €6 million investment at its Sanguesa paper mill in Spain, which will see the construction and installation of up to 12,000 solar panels on land adjacent to the mill. The solar panels will reduce CO2 emissions by over 3200 tonnes annually and provide significant cost savings.

The US Commerce Department plans to raise tariffs on two of Canada's largest timber companies, while reducing tariffs on most other Canadian producers.

International Paper Company announced that it entered into an agreement to sell its 50% interest in Ilim SA to its joint venture partners for $484M. The company noted that the sale is subject to regulatory approvals in Russia.

More problems at Macon's Graphic Packaging facility sent more than 100 million gallons of polluted wastewater into the Ocmulgee River.

Start-up is scheduled for early 2025.

Valmet will deliver bleached chemi-thermo mechanical pulp (BCTMP), evaporation and non-condensable gas (NCG) technology as well as an extensive automation solutions package for Stora Enso's Oulu mill in Finland. The delivery is part of Stora Enso's approximately EUR 1 billion investment to convert the remaining idle paper machine at their Oulu site into a high-volume consumer board production line.

Valmet will supply an extensive rebuild for Sappi's Somerset paper manufacturing facility in Skowhegan, Maine, USA. Previously, Valmet rebuilt the paper machine 1 (PM1) and with its success, Sappi has chosen Valmet again to rebuild the paper machine 2 (PM2).

Voith has acquired shares in the sustainability start-up Yangi, headquartered in Varberg, Sweden. Yangi's ground-breaking technology emerges from 10 years of R&D within its sister company, The Loop Factory, which focuses on the megatrends of sustainability and circular economy. As a result, the leading full-line supplier Voith is investing in new, future-oriented technologies to further drive decarbonization in the paper industry.

For more than two years now, the Italian company Toscotec has been a subsidiary of Voith and since then has been serving the business with new lines and major rebuilds in the tissue paper sector for the entire Voith Group.

ANDRITZ has received an order from Brazilian pulp producer Suzano to deliver a SulfoLoop concentrated sulfuric acid plant for its new pulp mill that Suzano is building in the municipality of Ribas do Rio Pardo, state of Mato Grosso do Sul.

Valmet will deliver a fiber fractionation system to Sichuan Tianzhu Bamboo Resource Co., Ltd in the Sichuan Province in China to improve mill efficiency. The value of the order will not be disclosed. The project is scheduled to be executed in the fall 2023.

Valmet has been selected to rebuild the cooking, fiberline and evaporation plant of Andhra Paper's Rajahmundry unit in India. The delivery is scheduled to take place in December 2023, and the start-up is planned for the first quarter 2024.

Andritz has received an order from Lipy Paper Mills Ltd. to supply wastepaper processing systems to the mill in Changine, Modonpur, Kanchpur, Sonargaon. These are the first Andritz RCF (Recycled Fiber) lines for Bangladesh.