Ilim Group to Invest $2 billion-Plus in Russian P&P Mills

Ilim Group, St Petersburg, Russia, this week announced its new Business Plan to 2020, which includes investments of more than $2 billion into existing production facilities and other operations in Russia. Investments will focus on increasing the Group’s production capacity by 500,000-plus metric tpy.

The overall investment program will cover all three of the Group’s production facilities in Bratsk, Koryazhma, and Ust-Ilimsk. The business plan envisages a series of measures aimed at modernization, increasing the efficiency and quality of production, minimizing the impact on the environment, and increasing production levels. The mills will be developed further alongside an increase in production of the Group’s own harvesting volumes as well as expanded cooperation with third-party wood suppliers.

Ust-Ilimsk will increase its production capacity by more than 100,000 metric tpy. The company is planning to build a new woodyard and modernize treatment facilities at the mill.

Bratsk will increase its production capacity by more than 300,000 metric tpy, improve production quality, and build a new woodyard and evaporator station.

Koryazhma will boost its production capacity by more than 130,000 metric tpy. It will also build new bark boilers and turbines, modernize the recovery boiler and causticizing and lime regeneration plants, and also modernize paper and paperboard making machines.

The company is also considering the possibility of building a new softwood pulp production line in Ust-Ilimsk. The final decision will be taken by the end of the year.

Ilim CEO Franz Marx said that "this is the right decision at the right time—an opportunity to further develop Ilim Group and a chance to increase the competitiveness of the Russian pulp and paper industry as a whole. "We already have a strong track record of successfully implementing large-scale investment projects, and we have set an ambitious goal to expand and upgrade our production facilities in the next five years by investing more than $2 billion. The successful implementation of our business plan will require the collective effort of the company's employees, as well as hundreds of contractors and vendors in various Russian regions."