Metsä Group announced that its Äänekoski bioproduct mill in Finland will hold its annual maintenance shutdown, by department, on Sunday, Oct. 2 and restart operations Oct. 6.
During the outage, the necessary service, cleaning and maintenance work is carried out at the plant. The most significant downtime work involves recovery boiler inspections, replacement of cooker feeders, maintenance of scrubbers and repair work on wood processing, Metsä Group said.
"Regular annual maintenance shutdowns play a key role in ensuring the safe and efficient operation of our factories," said Ari-Pekka Vanamo, Plant Manager at the Äänekoski mill. "Safety is the number one priority in the annual maintenance shutdown. Our goal is to ensure the safety of both our own personnel and partners through comprehensive proactive measures and safety instructions."
During the annual maintenance shutdown, in addition to Metsä Group's own personnel, approximately 1,000 representatives of the company partners work in the Äänekoski mill area. Although the coronavirus restrictions have been lifted, health safety has also been taken into account in the preparations for the annual maintenance shutdown.
"We continue to emphasize the importance of good hand hygiene and only emphasize working completely asymptomatic. If there are coronavirus cases at the factory, we will map out those who may have been exposed. We are actively monitoring the corona situation and are prepared to increase coronavirus testing and restrictions if the situation so requires," Vanamo said.
TAPPI
http://www.tappi.org/