UPM to Invest EUR 50 Million to Upgrade Kaukas Pulp Mill

 

UPM, Finland, this week reported that it will invest EUR 50 million in its Kaukas pulp mill in Lappeenranta, Finland, to further strengthen the mill’s efficiency, competitiveness, and optimization. The investment will go towards modernizing both pulp drying machines and installing a new baling line.

 

 

 

Assembly will take place during a planned shutdown in autumn 2016 and startup is scheduled for the end of 2016. The investment will benefit the entire Kaukas biorefining mill integrate through increased resource efficiency and operational flexibility.

 

"During the past two years, we have made focused investments to improve the production efficiency of our Pietarsaari, Kymi, and Fray Bentos pulp mills. When all of the projects are completed, our pulp production capacity will have increased by 10% from 3.3 million metric tpy since 2013. The Kaukas investment is yet another example of well-targeted good return investments," said Anssi Klinga, SVP, UPM pulp.

"Our biggest investment is the EUR 160 million expansion of the Kymi mill, which is proceeding well and will be completed in the autumn. The expansion will increase the mill’s production capacity by 170,000 metric tpy of bleached softwood and hardwood pulp," said Klinga.

These investments in the Kymi and Kaukas mills will complete UPM’s strategic decoupling of its pulp and paper businesses. This will enable higher efficiency and separate optimization of pulp and paper production while simultaneously maintaining internal synergies at the mills.