China’s Lee & Man Fires up 60,000 Metric tpy Tissue Machine in Chongqing

Lee & Man Paper Manufacturing has kicked off trial production on a new 60,000-metric tpy tissue PM at its mill in Chongqing municipality in southwestern China. Dubbed TM 13, the Valmet unit has a trim width of 5.6 m and a design speed of 2,000 m/min. It churned out its first sheet of paper in Fberuary, boosting the plant’s tissue capacity to 450,000 metric tpy.

Three identical machines are expected to come onstream at the same site in the first half of the year.

The company recently advanced its tissue expansion program further, ordering another four tissue PMs for its Jiujiang mill in Jiangxi province from Chinese supplier Baotuo Paper Machinery Engineering.

Each unit will have a trim width of 2.85 m and a design speed of 1,300 m/min, capable of producing up to 17,000 metric tpy of tissue. Their startups are scheduled for toward the end of the year.

At present the mill operates two 60,000-metric tpy tissue machines, both commissioned in mid-2017. Lee & Man also brought two 60,000-metric tpy Voith-supplied tissue units online at its Hongmei facility in Guangdong province in late 2017.

Despite being a latecomer to the industry, the board giant has surpassed many competitors to become the fourth largest tissue producer in the country by capacity, behind APP China, Hengan International and Vinda International Holdings.

If all the new projects stay on track, it will boast a total tissue capacity of 938,000 metric tpy by the end of this year.