Recent Articles

A fire inside Packaging Corporation of America's Boise paper mill in International Falls kept local firefighters at the scene for about five hours on Sunday, May 23.

Graphic Packaging Holding Company announced the conclusion of its successful partnership with International Paper Company. The final tranche of the membership interests held by International Paper in Graphic Packaging International Partners, LLC (the "Partnership") were exchanged for an equivalent number of shares of Graphic Packaging common stock. As a result, Graphic Packaging now owns 100% of the Partnership.

Norske Skog met with employees this past weekto tell them it is considering closing down its Tasman Mill.

The financings, totaling $240 million, include the previously announced $165 million in investments.

Investigators say the machine wasn't near the paper supply, and the cause for the fire is still being determined.

Klabin is building at the Puma II Project, together with the new packaging paper production line in Ortigueira, Paraná, the first ever sulfuric acid plant integrated to a pulp and paper mill in Brazil, which will make the unit self-sufficient in producing the acid.

Stora Enso on May 20 arranged a virtual inauguration ceremony to celebrate the successful conversion of the Oulu Mill which was transformed from paper production into high-quality kraftliner production. The Prime Minister of Finland, Sanna Marin, inaugurated the mill. Oulu is Stora Enso's second successful conversion, following Varkaus Mill, inaugurated in 2016.

There were no injuries at an early morning fire Monday, May 17, at the Georgia Pacific Medium Density Fiberboard plant in Mount Jewett.

The fire broke out at the mill during the evening of May 2. It caused widespread damage to the former mill, leaving the building unstable and causing concerns that it would fully collapse. A few days after the fire, crews began to demolish the building out of safety concerns.

The new facility with a total installed cost exceeding $1 billion will create 850 new jobs.

Nippon Paper Industries has decided that at the end of May 2022, it will shut down the operation of its coated paper-producing N6 paper machine at Ishinomaki mill (Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Pref) in Japan.

Domtar held a groundbreaking ceremony for its $300 million renovation and expansion of the Kingsport mill.

Dennis Schoeneck, the president of the Timber Professionals Cooperative, said the group has continued talking with Verso about a potential sale of the Rapids mill, although there hasn't been a deal on the table yet.

The Lenzing Group will invest more than Euro 200 million in its production sites in Purwakarta, Indonesia, and Nanjing, China, to convert existing standard viscose capacity into environmentally responsible specialty fibers.

Domtar Corporation announced it will expand its Jesup, Georgia based Engineered Absorbent Materials (EAM) facility. The project will play an integral role in helping the company grow its position as a leading global absorbent materials and technology business offering fluff pulp and airlaid nonwoven materials.

ST aims to convert the mill to produce tissue paper, instead of the supercalendered paper it has traditionally manufactured. ST Paper had been negotiating to purchase the mill and convert it to tissue paper production at an anticipated cost of about $54 million.

In line with its previously communicated intention, Nordic Paper has decided to discontinue the production of pulp at the Säffle plant during the fourth quarter 2021 and replace it with purchased external pulp. The decision has been made as the consultations with trade unions regarding the pulp production now have been concluded. The decision leads to positive environmental effects and the use of fossil fuels at the plant will be reduced to less than half of the current level.

PaperWorks Industries, Inc. has announced the appointment of Brian Janki to the posts of President & CEO and member of the Board of Directors effective May 10, 2021. Mr. Janki replaces C. Anderson "Andy" Bolton.

Glatfelter Corporation, a leading global supplier of engineered materials, announced it has completed the previously announced acquisition of Georgia-Pacific's U.S. nonwovens business for $175 million, subject to customary purchase price adjustments.

Ahlstrom-Munksjö has completed an investment in one of its filtration material production lines in Binzhou, China.

In this past winter, I was doing research for a paper I was presenting at a conference. I came to the conclusion that, in developed countries, a conventionally sized tissue machine serves approximately 4 million people. From this piece of information, it is quite easy to reach other conclusions.

The PM40 closed Friday, 28 May 2021, at 4434.

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 28 May 2021 up 75.7% from the 29 May 2020 level.

In this issue of Disconnected Comparisons, we evaluate Sappi and Weyerhaeuser.

It's a potential leap in technology that most scientists remain skeptical about, but which a Japanese paper producer is determined to pursue: using trees to develop a successor to lithium-ion batteries for electric cars.