China’s Shandong Tranlin Fires up First TM in Jiamusi, Heilongjiang

Shandong Tranlin Paper has kicked off trial runs on the first tissue machine at a new mill in Jiamusi city, in northeastern China’s Heilongjiang province. The first sheet of paper rolled off the line at the end of last month.

Provided by Chinese supplier Weifang Hicredit Machinery, the unit has a width of 2.85 m and a design speed of 900 m/min. It can make 10,000 tonnes/yr.

It is the first to start out of 11 identical TMs that have been erected at the site. The others are likely to be fired up one after another by the end of this year, according to a contact from the supplier.

Tranlin has also ordered another nine tissue production lines from the same supplier, which are to go up at the same plant.

The 20 units will be integrated with an on-site straw pulp line to produce unbleached tissue paper.

Apart from the facility in Heilongjiang, the pulp and paper producer also has ambitious tissue capacity expansion schemes elsewhere, both within the country and overseas.

In the neighboring province of Jilin, the company is constructing a new mill which will house 13 TMs, supplied by Hangzhou Dalu Industrial and Weifang Hicredit Machinery. Each will be able to churn out up to 10,000 tonnes/yr of tissue.

Furthermore, it intends to build a total of 27 TMs at its flagship mill in Gaotang, Shandong province. All of them will be the same as those at the Jiamusi mill except for one TM which will have a design speed of 1,600 m/min.

This fast-growing newcomer to the tissue sector has been in the international spotlight since 2014 when it formed a US subsidiary to handle a plan to invest US$2 billion in a greenfield straw pulp, tissue and fertilizer mill in Chesterfield County, VA, US.

The Chesterfield Observer reported in late March that Jerry Zhiyuan Peng has departed as chief executive officer for the US subsidiary, which renamed itself Vastly in September of 2016.