Construction at Kushiro began this past spring, after the company decided to expand its dissolving pulp capacity to meet the continuing rise in demand for this grade. Nippon has invested some 2.2 billion yen in the project so far.
The production of dissolving pulp with a continuous kraft pulping digester will be the first in Japan. The company was supported in this project by the Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry, which provided a subsidy for the development of equipment to be used in the evaluation and verification of advanced technologies. As the project proceeds, verification and assessments will be conducted and the production scale will expand to 30,000 metric tpy.
Nippon Paper Group, which produces numerous products from wood, mainly paper products, said that the Kushiro project is "intended to enhance the technology we have accumulated for the utilization of ligneous resources, and to broaden our scope of business beyond paper production. As a corporate group that comprehensively utilizes ligneous resources, we will continue pursuing the possibilities of wood and creating new value to meet the needs of society."
TAPPI
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