"The increased capacity will allow us to offer our customers better service, with shorter lead times on orders and greater availability," says Mika Joukio, SVP and head of M-real Consumer Packaging. "We believe demand for our fresh forest fiber products will continue to increase, due to their purity, light weight, and sustainability."
In a separate joint venture, M-real is building a new biopower plant next to the Kyro mill, to replace fossil natural gas with wood, predominantly bark, chips, stumps, and other discarded wood, together with mill broke. The biopower plant will also provide heating for the neighboring district of Hämeenkyrӧ. After startup of the plant in autumn 2012, carbon dioxide emissions from the Kyro mill will be reduced by approximately 100,000 metric tpy, equivalent to the annual emissions of around 60,000 cars.
M-real's investment program, which will increase its total folding boxboard capacity by 150,000 metric to 935,000 metric tpy, also includes a rebuild at the Simpele mill finalized in June 2011, and the rebuild of its Äänekoski board machine due for completion in spring 2012. Together with EUR 16 million invested at M-real Kemi to improve the quality of its white-top kraftliners and the biopower plant, total investment in the Consumer Packaging business area will exceed EUR 100 million during 2011 - 2012.
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