The largest investment of the forest industry in Finland – Metsä Fibre’s, part of Metsä Group, new Kemi bioproduct mill – came into operation as planned on Wednesday 20 September 2023. AFRY contributed significantly to the bioproduct mill project from the early study and pre-engineering phases to detail engineering and construction phase with multidisciplinary engineering and project management services.
The Kemi bioproduct mill produces 1.5 million tonnes of softwood and hardwood pulp annually. It uses zero fossil fuels and will be completely waste-free by 2030. Featuring cutting-edge technology, the mill operates a fully-fledged circular economy, as all the wood raw material and production side streams are efficiently used for various bioproducts and bioenergy. For example, the mill produces tall oil and turpentine, as well as two terawatt hours of renewable electricity per year, which is equivalent to the annual consumption of 100,000 electrically heated single-family homes.
AFRY delivered project management services for the bioproduct mill, detailed engineering services for all engineering disciplines for Balance of Plant (BOP) and digitalisation services for the mill with BIM (Building Information Modelling) and PIM (Process Information Modelling) of the project, including the establishment of SSOT (Single-Source-of-Truth) concept towards digital twin. AFRY also provided project management, engineering and site services of the chlorine dioxide plant as well as delivered tall oil plant as EPC delivery.
Kemi bioproduct mill can now utilise the single-source-of-truth digital platform in their daily operations by integrating all operational data (OT) including e.g. maintenance and production data to existing engineering data (ET).
“Good engineering work is key when building this kind of new and modern bioproduct mill. AFRY has been an important partner for us, and together with other main partners we have managed to run the project on schedule and start the mill as planned,” says Jari-Pekka Johansson, Director of the bioproduct mill project at Metsä Fibre.
“We are proud that we have been part of this project that contributes to job creation, economic stability, and an improved environmental footprint. The longstanding partnership between Metsä and AFRY spans several decades and the good collaboration with Metsä Fibre and all project partners has played a pivotal role in making this project a success,” says Nicholas Oksanen, EVP and Head of Process Industries at AFRY
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