The announced investments are for the manufacturing of calcium carbonate in 7 locations in Asia Pacific for long-term partners in the paper and board industry.
Executing agreements finalized beginning in 2022, Omya will invest in 7 onsite plants for ground and precipitated calcium carbonate at paper and paperboard mill locations in China and Indonesia. The new plants in China include 3 ground calcium carbonate (GCC) plants in Guangxi, Guangdong, and Shandong, 2 precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) plants in Shandong, and 1 more PCC plant in Fujian. The new plant in Indonesia will be for GCC in Sumatra.
These new manufacturing locations will be able to produce a broad product portfolio including filler grade PCC & GCC, coating grade GCC, and high-end GCC for clay replacement.
In total, the new plants will offer about 1 million dry metric tonnes per year of capacity, including 740,000 tonnes of GCC capacity and 260,000 tonnes of PCC capacity. All 7 plants are currently under construction and will be commissioned in 2023 and 2024.
Peter Tynell, Vice President Paper & Board said, “We are very honoured to have been selected as a long-term partner by our customers and very excited to build and operate these new plants.”
GCC and PCC are essential raw materials for paper manufacturing, which can improve key paper properties such as opacity, whiteness, smoothness, gloss, printability, and reduce total production costs. These new Omya investments were secured through a competitive bid process where our customers assessed items such as product quality, innovation, total production cost, project execution capability, and technical service to select the best partner for their onsite operations.