Recent Articles

Vida AB, owned 70% by Canfor Corporation, will acquire a 50 million board feet sawmill from Ingarp Träskydd for 50 million SEK (CAD$6.0 million). The sawmill has the potential for expansion to 100 million board feet and the transaction is expected to close on October 3, 2023.

DS Smith Zarnesti paper mill has inaugurated its new Waste Water Treatment Plant, which is an essential component of Euro 11 million worth investment plan, launched in 2021.

The development programme for Metsä Board's white kraftliner mill in Kemi, Finland, has been completed in parallel with Metsä Fibre's new bioproduct mill. Metsä Board and Metsä Fibre are part of Metsä Group. In addition to increasing the mill's capacity by 40,000 tonnes per year, the development programme will reduce the mill's energy consumption by 5% and water consumption by around 40% per tonne produced.

West Fraser Timber is shedding two of its pulp mills located in the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta for $120 million as it doubles down on its wood building products focus.

The company, which laid off 130 employees at its St. Paul facility about a year ago, notified the state's Department of Employment and Economic Development last month that it planned to begin layoffs in Fridley on Nov. 13.

By building the new TMP line at Skogn, the Company ensures that it can produce on all machines without recycled fibres.

In all, 516 workers will be without jobs when the shutdown is complete, and nearly 2,000 additional loggers will have to find buyers elsewhere. The mill is expected to be closed by year's end.

Metsä Tissue announces that it has chosen Goole, East Riding of Yorkshire as the site for its planned new state-of-the-art tissue paper mill in the UK. This landmark investment of several hundreds of millions of pounds will deliver the largest tissue mill in the UK and significantly reduce the quantity of tissue products that are currently imported into the UK and Ireland each year. The new mill will create 400+ jobs at the facility, as well as thousands more across the supply chain and the local economy.

SCA's new facility in Obbola, outside Umeå, Sweden, has now been inaugurated. This means that the paper mill has the world's largest machine for kraftliner and with it a significantly increased capacity to produce climate-smart packaging material.

According to a news release, employees told firefighters a forklift caught fire inside the building, sparking the blaze.

On Tuesday, Sept. 19, the packaging company WestRock announced to its employees that its shutting down operations in Louisville.

Ahlstrom has successfully started the production of new, calendered, and embossed synthetic filter media for the first commercial orders from its Huyn-Poong plant in South Korea. The new materials offer extended filter lifetime and generate less flow restriction due to a higher available surface area. This makes these media a more sustainable alternative to competing materials.

International Paper celebrated the opening of its newest state-of-the-art corrugated packaging facility in Atglen, PA on Friday, September 15, 2023. The new $100 million facility is providing more than 100 manufacturing jobs to Atglen and the surrounding communities.

Mondi plc announces that it has entered into an agreement to sell its last remaining facility in Russia, Joint Stock Company Mondi Syktyvkar, together with two affiliated entities to Sezar Invest LLC for a total cash consideration of RUB 80 billion (Euro 775 million) to be paid in a series of instalments.

International Paper announced that it has completed the sale of its 50% interest in Ilim SA, the holding company for its Ilim joint venture (JV), to its JV partners for $484MM (USD) in cash.

UFP Global Holdings Ltd., a subsidiary of UFP Industries, Inc., has acquired 80% of the equity in a newly formed company, UFP Palets y Embalajes SL, for approximately $52 million.

Hans Sohlström has over 30 years of experience in business leadership, including over 10 years as CEO predominantly in the forest and renewable materials industries. Most recently he led Ahlstrom Corporation, Ahlström Capital and Rettig Group.

If you are in your thirties or forties, you may not have previously seen the kinds of turmoil going on in the pulp and paper industry now. Today, demand is soft and thus prices are soft, thus squeezing profits and cashflow. This has not happened in the surviving grades for a long time (we have nearly stopped producing any grades that were designed for their communicating ability, today the industry is composed largely of those grades demanded for their physical properties). We have been remarking for the last few weeks that the containerboard segment is undergoing unprecedented turmoil. Now this turmoil has hit the board rooms.

The PM40 closed Friday, 29 September 2023, at 4976.

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 29 September 2023 up 13.2% from the 30 September 2022 level.

In this issue of Disconnected Comparisons, we evaluate Mercer International and International Paper.

Mörrum is a specialty mill with two dedicated lines, one producing a wide range of premium paper pulps and the other dedicated to dissolving pulp for textiles and other applications together with the unique OnceMore® process.

The delivery is scheduled for the third quarter 2024.

Headquartered in Düren, Germany, Heimbach is a global supplier of paper machine clothing for the production of all grades of paper and cardboard on all machine types as well as high-tech textile products used in a variety of sectors, such as the food processing, chemicals, construction materials and automotive industries.

Andritz has received an order from Nordic Paper to deliver a new wood room with chip and bark handling for its Bäckhammar mill in Sweden.