BillerudKorsnäs President and CEO Per Lindberg has today to the Board of Directors announced his decision to leave the company to become the President and CEO of Epiroc.

A large area of Brazilian rainforest located within one of AkzoNobel’s sites is being planted with around 12,000 seedlings of species native to the region as part of an ongoing project to safeguard the fragile ecosystem.

Mondi Industrial Bags, in collaboration with its customer and cement producer LafargeHolcim, has created SPLASHBAG – a paper-based solution designed to satisfy the need of dealing with materials that are often exposed to wet conditions or environments.

Ms. Ksenia Sosnina, CEO of Ilim Group, and Mr. Nikolay Khodov, CEO of Orgkhim Biochemical Holding, have signed an agreement to set up Amber Stream LLC, a joint venture with 50/50 participation.

Perttu Louhiluoto, President of Metso’s Minerals Services business area and a member of the Metso Executive Team.

The Annual General Meeting of the Association ZELLCHEMING took place from July 4-6th, 2017 during the ZELLCHEMING-Expo on the fair ground in Frankfurt. At the members’ assembly on July 5th, Dipl.-Wirt.-Ing. Erich Kollmar, Gebr. Bellmer GmbH, was elected as new Chairman of Association ZELLCHEMING. He follows Xaver Weig, Moritz J. Weig GmbH & Co. KG on a basis of rotation. Gerrit Lund, Papierfabrik Scheufelen GmbH & Co. KG, was elected as Deputy Chairman.

In recent years Mondi Containerboard has developed a technical sales service to close the gap between papermakers’ and corrugated board makers’ understanding of each other’s challenges, and to share knowledge and best practice.

One containerboard customer that values Mondi’s technical sales service expertise and unique approach is Aquila, which ranks among Poland’s leading corrugated board producers. Mondi Containerboard and Aquila have been business partners for almost a decade now and share an ambition to achieve the highest quality and production parameters for their customers’ success and satisfaction.

Vinda Paper Zhejiang fired up two Toscotec supplied tissue machines, TM 3 and 4, at its Longyou mill in Zhejiang province. The mill successfully achieved start-up according to schedule and thus increased its production capacity by 60,000 tons/year.

Sappi is pleased to announce that it will bolster its Packaging and Speciality Papers Business through the acquisition of the barrier film technology of Rockwell Solutions. The transaction will mean that Rockwell Solutions will become a subsidiary of Sappi Europe. The size of the transaction does not require regulatory disclosure.

Sappi is one of the world’s leading producers of speciality papers and carton board with a strong presence in meeting the increased global demand for sustainable barrier paper solutions. Commenting on the transaction, Thomas Kratochwill, Vice President Sales and Marketing, Packaging and Speciality Papers for Sappi Europe said “By gaining access to the barrier film technology of Rockwell Solutions Sappi will be able to accelerate the development of our own solutions and be able to offer our customers an even wider range of barrier coated packaging solutions.”

The chairman of Rockwell Solutions, Dr Aziz Okhai, said “Rockwell Solutions is a high technology coatings family based producer and would benefit significantly by allying itself to a major player such as Sappi. It can only strengthen the future of all those who work at Rockwell Solutions”. The transaction ensures that there will be no disruption to Rockwell Solutions’ ongoing business and customers.

Sonoco-Alcore S.a.r.l. today announced it will again raise prices for paper-based tubes and cores, effective from shipments beginning on 24th July 2017.

"Prices of coreboard continue to rise, driven by fundamental changes in recovered paper markets. As this trend continues, we are forced to keep pace and apply a further increase to our tubes and cores," said Karsten Kemmerling, Director of Sales and Marketing - Tubes and Cores, Europe. "We continue to invest in our operations to generate manufacturing productivity, but this will not cover the significant increase in material costs. The outlook for the second half of this year could well be a further tightening of material availability and inevitably further price increases for our base raw material."

UPM, the world’s leading paper manufacturer, has launched a new innovation, UPM Impresse plus C, a pioneering SC paper custom-developed for coldset web offset printing. UPM Impresse plus C offers a smoother, glossier finish and a unique, magazine-quality result that sets new benchmarks in CSWO printing.

The velvety finish and appealing texture enable superior-quality print reproduction characterised by intense colours and rich contrasts. This new innovation opens up a whole new range of business opportunities for CSWO printers, whilst also enabling more efficient utilization of press capacity.

The city of Kotka is a host port of the international Tall Ships Races sailing event this summer in the middle of July. The event takes place mostly on the island of Kotka where Kotkamills Oy is located. Kotkamills creates innovative products from wood, a renewable raw material. The product range of Kotkamills includes easily recyclable consumer board, special high-quality laminating papers and ecological wood products. Kotkamills’ products are environmentally sound, recyclable and safe to use.

Kotkamills is proud to be one of the partners supporting The Tall Ships Races event this year, and to have the opportunity to emphasise the circular economy and sustainability made possible with fibre based products. Kotkamills is providing the restaurants and coffee shops of the event area with disposable paper cups and plates made of easily recyclable barrier board.

ANDRITZ has received an order from Vajda Papír to supply a complete tissue production line for its mill in Dunaföldvár, Hungary. Start-up is scheduled for March 2018.

The order comprises a PrimeLineCOMPACT VI tissue machine with steel Yankee and shoe press as well as a complete stock preparation system, including pumps, automation, electrification, all auxiliaries, and services. 

The stock preparation system includes an FSV pulper, which is equipped with the latest design of energy-saving rotor, three proven ANDRITZ double-disc TwinFlo refiners, a ModuScreen CP protection screen with rotating cylinder, and a low-energy ModuScreen HBE headbox screen.

Bekaert Solaronics will supply Metsä Board Kyröskoski mill with a GemDryer® system for coat drying on their BM1, linked with one Energy Recovery System (ERS).

The GemDryer® infrared system replaces existing gas infrared equipment. The new drying system from Bekaert Solaronics offers higher input power, higher efficiency and helps to decrease the total running costs.

​Lecta brings out a new Adestor hot-melt adhesive for the food industry.​​

Adestor HM300 is a permanent hot-melt adhesive with a very high tack especially formulated for high-speed air-blow labelling. It performs well at low temperatures and can be used at room temperature of -5ºC. Its immediate strong adhesion makes it ideal for rough and curved surfaces.

The new HM300 adhesive has been designed for use in the food industry and is available in a range of different paper and film face stock.

All Adestor products are manufactured under ISO 14001 and EMAS environmental standards and ISO 50001 energy efficiency, ISO 9001 quality and OHSAS 18001 occupational health and safety standards. They are also available with PEFC™ and FSC® Chain-of-Custody forest certification upon request.

Inefficiencies of energy and raw material usage of a plant can be identified by analysing its operations. This helps to plan controlled production increase and operating costs reduction without additional investment.

Pöyry offers Operational Excellence services that help Pulp and Paper companies to improve their industrial processes. The service can potentially reduce production costs between 20 and 50 euros per tonne of pulp, ensuring a significant competitive advantage in the international pulp market.

According to Gabriel Sousa, Principal Consultant at Pöyry Management Consulting, "even plants that have recently started operations and therefore have new equipment cannot always extract maximum performance due to inefficiencies in the production and management processes". Sousa points out that it is necessary to evaluate each sub-process and even the production as a whole in order to identify improvement gaps and reduce costs, avoid losses and optimise production. "Many of the improvements we have identified do not require additional investment", explains Sousa.

ANDRITZ and Metsä Fibre have successfully collaborated on a program to maximize reduction of the use of fossil fuels, as well as improve the overall performance of the lime kiln at the Joutseno mill in Finland. The goal of the program, entitled “Gasification Plant 100% Utilization Rate”, was to maximize the availability of all equipment, including the wood processing plant, dryer, gasification plant, and lime kiln, as well as the lime kiln burner and its heat transfer system.

As a result of the program, the Joutseno mill has now replaced 95% of natural gas being used in the lime kiln with biomass (bark) derived gas. Moreover, the quality of lime product has markedly improved. The cooperation between the two companies will continue with Overall Production Efficiency (OPE) agreements to further fine tune the systems.

  As the first company in the world, Firefly has conducted and passed tests according to the test protocol for Quick Suppression Systems - ‘DFL TM170307-1261 – Quick Suppression Systems for certain high-risk areas typically found in industry applications’. It has been developed by DFL, an ISO/IEC 17025 certified test laboratory, accredited to conduct full scale fire-tests.

A Quick Suppression System is a Fixed Automatic Discharge Fire Suppression System, including flame detection, water mist suppression and control system, with strict demands on quick system response times and fast extinguishing performance. The system is designed for detection and suppression of fires/flames around critical machinery and/or high-risk areas with remarkable flame suppression capabilities, utilizing a very small amount of water.

Mondi has again made a donation to UNICEF in connection with the company’s biannual customer satisfaction survey. To encourage customers to participate, Mondi promised a donation to a charity fund for each completed survey received. This year the initiative resulted in a total donation of €37,250, far surpassing the €27,000 raised by the 2015 Mondi survey.

UNICEF will use the €37,250 received from Mondi as start-up funding for a new project called ‘Water Supply for Aleppo’. Much of the infrastructure in this Syrian city has been damaged by war. With €37,250 UNICEF can restore a functioning system of running water and plumbing to five schools in Aleppo, enabling Syrian children to once again attend schools with proper hygienic facilities. UNICEF’s ‘Water Supply for Aleppo’ fund is open to further donations from the public so that more water supply infrastructure can be repaired in the city.

Dr Gudrun Berger, Executive Director, Austrian Committee for UNICEF, commented, “We are grateful for Mondi’s contributions to various UNICEF projects over the years. Their clever approach of linking their company initiative to charitable fundraising has again resulted in a significant donation for an urgently needed programme.”

Albert Klinkhammer, Mondi Group Marketing Director, said, “We are delighted that the increased participation in our customer survey has resulted in our much larger donation to UNICEF this year. We are pleased to support this project that will benefit children in Syria, and we hope that our start-up funding will inspire others to donate to this very worthy cause. We look for opportunities to make social responsibility a part of what we do. Every day.”

Stora Enso’s woodfree coated paper brand, Lumi, has updated its appearance. For 20 years, Lumi’s brand identity and recognition have relied heavily on its visual elements, black and white colour and round shaped logo with the brand name in it. Now the old Lumi logo has been updated and also includes an endorsement by Stora Enso. The new identity looks more modern while Lumi’s familiar black and white pattern still remains.

UPM Biofuels is developing a new feedstock concept by growing Brassica Carinata as a sequential crop in South America. The Carinata crop produces non-edible oil suitable for biofuels’ feedstock and protein for animal feed.

The sequential cropping concept enables contract farmers to take agricultural land into use outside the main cultivation period, in winter time, without compromising existing food production. This does not cause any land use change, prevents erosion and improves soil quality. Carinata will provide additional income to local farmers, who do not normally have their fields in productive use during winter. In South America UPM grows and tests Carinata with third-party farmers in Uruguay and Brazil.

Roll cover technology is a key factor in improving sheet release, reducing draw, improving dewatering performance, ensuring consistent coating and sizing, and excellent calendering results. The various applications on the paper machine require a variety of roll cover designs and coating materials.

The materials used range from ceramic coatings to very soft elastomeric covers and have surface profiles ranging from plain polished to high open surfaces, as well as complex cross-machine direction crown designs.

Delfort, global innovation leader in the development, manufacturing and distribution of special and functional papers, expands its portfolio with a fluorochemical-free, oil and grease-resistant packaging paper namely thinbarrier® OGR eco. thinbarrier® OGR eco performs with excellent oil and grease-repellant properties and is, at the same time, environmentally friendly.

QSR’s and the food service industry are increasingly requesting fluorochemical-free alternatives for food packaging that outperform the existing fluorine treated papers in both sustainability and functionality. Papers used for direct wrapping or packing of grease-containing food products such as hamburgers, wraps, french fries, soup cubes and many more, require added barriers to keep oil and grease from seeping through the packaging.

Fibria, a Brazilian forestry company and the world’s leading producer of eucalyptus pulp from planted forests, has signed an agreement to acquire a minority interest in Finnish-based Spinnova and partner in the development, production and marketing of new materials using its technologies.

Spinnova is a startup that develops low-cost and environmentally sustainable technologies for making fabrics. The technologies uses wood fibers to produce filaments and yarns that can replace cotton, viscose and other raw materials in both woven and nonwoven applications.