Pratt Valparaiso Mill Starts up

Pratt Industries, Australia, has brought its new, $260 million recycled containerboard mill online at Valparaiso, Ind., USA. Pratt, which has now built three of its past four mills in the U.S., noted that the new 100% recycled facility would supply the company’s rapidly-expanding Midwest operations. 

In just two years, company chairman Anthony Pratt said Pratt had invested more than $400 million in the U.S. "This is a great day for Pratt Industries," he said. "This mill represents the single biggest investment we’ve ever made in the U.S."

Pratt said the new mill would also increase the company’s annual revenues from approximately $2.1 billion to approaching $2.5 billion. "This puts us in a very strong position to exceed our medium range target of $3.5 billion in sales ahead of schedule," he said.

Pratt explained that America’s low energy costs and inherent entrepreneurial spirit had given rise to a new wave of manufacturing growth, especially in the Midwest where he says industry is booming and jobs are coming back from China and elsewhere. "We’re riding that wave," he said.

The mill, located 50 miles southeast of Chicago is on the same site as Pratt’s corrugated box plant, the world’s largest. It will supply that facility as well the company’s other box-making sites throughout the region with recycled containerboard.

Pratt said it would be the industry’s most efficient paper mill, employing 120 people to make 370,000 tons a year – twice the productivity of many competitor mills. "It is the world’s most environmentally-friendly paper mill and a showcase for the latest in 21st Century papermaking technology," he said.

Pratt said the company would open a new $50 million corrugated box plant in Beloit, Wis., in just a few weeks.

Pratt Industries now has some 130 facilities in the U.S. and is currently the fifth largest corrugated packaging company in the U.S.