Iggesund Paperboard to Further Cut Carbon Emissions

Iggesund Paperboard, Sweden, reports that it is investing strongly to completely eliminate all fossil carbon emissions from the company's paperboard mill at Workington in the U.K. The board of Holmen, the Sweden-based forest products group that owns Iggesund, has agreed to invest a total of £108 million to switch the whole mill's energy supply from fossil natural gas to biofuels.

Iggesund is already investing in a new recovery boiler at the company's mill at Iggesund, Sweden. The boiler will mean that all production at the mill will be biofuel driven and the mill will also be self-sufficient in electricity. The investment at Workington means that the same approach will be used at the company's U.K. facility.

"Our two paperboard mills will have a unique position in the market," said Björn Kvick, president of Iggesund Paperboard. "Whether a customer wants solid bleached board such as the Invercote we produce in Sweden or Incada, the folding box board we produce in the U.K., we can offer a world-class product with regard to low fossil carbon emissions. And this is in addition to all of the other benefits our products offer."

The planned biofuel plant at Workington is being dimensioned for a thermal output of 150 MW and will supply all of the mill's energy needs, both as electricity and as thermal energy in the form of steam.

"This investment proves very clearly our ambition to develop our paperboard production at Workington," comments Ola Schultz-Eklund, Managing Director at Workington, who was the driving force behind upgrading the mill's energy supply. "Last year we also invested 3.6 million pounds in rebuilding the refiners in our pulp mill," he says. "That reduced our electricity consumption by 13%, but even more importantly it has created the conditions for us to further improve the quality of Incada."

Over the past decade or so, Iggesund has invested almost £100 million in developing paperboard production at Workington. Each year the mill produces 200,000 metric tons of the folding box board Incada and employs close to 400 people.

TAPPI
http://www.tappi.org/