Woodland Pulp Addition of Tissue Capacity Delayed, but Still on Schedule

Construction to add tissue production capacity—two new tissue machines (suppliers not yet named)—at the Woodland Pulp mill in Baileyville, Maine, USA, has been delayed, but the company reports that the project still is expected to be completed on schedule. As reported by Bangor Daily News, Bangor, Maine, when parent company International Grand Investment Corp., which bought the mill from Domtar for $64 million in 2010, initially announced the $120 million expansion this past March, it said that construction would begin in the spring.

 

The two new tissue machines were going to be housed in an existing building that formerly contained a fine paper machine. The building was going to require renovations and a small addition.

 

 

"Once we got into detailed engineering, that was going to be difficult at best," tissue mill manager Martin Richard said in the article. The "most feasible option" developed was to substantially enlarge the existing building to house the majority of the tissue manufacturing equipment, he said, noting that "we had to extend the new building out to accommodate most of the equipment."

 

The changes will not impact the cost of the project, Richard added, nor will it affect the project timetable or expected startup of the tissue operations. The company still expects the first machine to be operational by the fourth quarter of 2015 and the second machine by the first quarter of 2016.

 

The demolition of a 9,800-square-foot paper warehouse, to make way for the tissue building addition, was completed this past month. Excavation work is expected to begin this month (September). 

 

"Our goal," Richard said, is to have the concrete work finished in the fall so steel erecting work can progress during the winter. The building will be about 184 ft. by 254 ft., Scott Beal, the company’s environmental manager, indicated earlier.

According to the newspaper article, the company also has received permits for two additions — one to increase storage capacity for finished products and another to house some of the ancillary equipment for the tissue operations.

The two tissue machines will be operated by St. Croix Tissue, an affiliate of Woodland Pulp, and employ about 80 people. The machines annually will produce 60,000 tons of tissue made from pulp supplied by Woodland Pulp.

 

The two tissue machines will be operated by St. Croix Tissue Inc., Augusta, Maine, an affiliate of Woodland Pulp. The mill employs some 320 people and is the largest employer and taxpayer in Washington County.