Sappi Breaks Ground on Dissolving Pulp Conversion at Cloquet Mill

Sappi broke ground this past week on its dissolving pulp mill project in Cloquet, Minn., USA, The $170 million project converts the existing kraft pulp mill at Cloquet to dissolving pulp, or chemical cellulose. When completed, it will have the capacity to produce 330,000 metric tons of chemical cellulose per year.

Plans for the conversion, announced last November, represent the largest investment Sappi has made in North America in some time, and the largest investment at the mill itself since the $500 million former Potlatch mill expansion in the 1990s. The new cellulose production is set to start in May 2013.

Sappi is currently the world's largest manufacturer of chemical cellulose out of its Saiccor Mill in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The Cloquet project, together with the earlier announced expansion at the Sappi Ngodwana Mill in South Africa, will bring Sappi's total chemical cellulose capacity to more than 1.3 million metric tpy.

TAPPI
http://www.tappi.org/