Shandong Tranlin Starts up Straw Pulp Line in China; US Project Indefinitely Delayed

Shandong Tranlin Paper has kicked off the trial production of straw pulp at a new mill in Jiamusi city, in northeastern China’s Heilongjiang province.

The fiber line is fed with agricultural field waste such as wheat straw and corn stalks. It has a design capacity of 200,000 tonnes/yr.

According to the company, testing started April 18 and the first slurry pulp was produced May 5. All the line’s output is to feed the tissue machines at the site and no market pulp will be available for sale, a company contact told PPI Asia.

Prior to the startup of the straw pulp line, the company commissioned the first tissue machine at the Jiamusi mill at the end of March.

So far it has kicked off trial runs on six out of the 11 TMs that have been installed there, according to the contact. Shandong Tranlin has also ordered another nine identical tissue units for the same plant. Altogether the 20 units will have a combined tissue capacity of 200,000 tonnes/yr.

The plant is also using the black liquor from the pulp production process to make organic fertilizer.

Meanwhile, the Chinese company’s expansion into the US has hit another delay. Representatives of its US subsidiary Tranlin, also known as Vastly, told local media that the startup of its proposed $2-billion straw pulp, tissue and fertilizer mill in Chesterfield County, VA, has been pushed back. The mill was originally expected to be fully operational by 2020.

The delay was attributed, according to a representative, to the parent company’s recent, unexpected success with a new pulp, paper making and fertilizer facility in China, which is significant enough to have implications for how business plans in the US will roll out.

Lisa Randall, associate director of corporate communications at Vastly, declined to confirm that the new facility referred to was the Jiamusi complex in her communications with PPI Asia. She declined to provide a revised timeline for the Chesterfield project. "The company is finalizing its work on project investment requirements and environmental studies," she explained.

Since it was first announced in 2014, Shandong Tranlin’s planned  mill in Chesterfield has reportedly gone off schedule several times due to obstacles in acquiring land and environmental permits.

Failure to meet targets for construction and job creation forced the US subsidiary to defer receiving the first $2 million instalment of a $20 million state grant in April 2016 and again in April of this year, local media reported.