Lucart Restarts Second PM at Former CEL Tissue Mill in Spain

Production is back in full swing at the Aranguren tissue mill that Italy’s Lucart group acquired from the financially troubled Spanish tissue specialist CEL Technologies & System earlier this year. Following the restart of the site’s PM 13 in mid-February, the second paper machine, PM 14, has been up and running since late March.

"Thanks to the commitment of our Spanish, Italian and French colleagues, the plant [was brought] back to production in less than two months," Lucart said in statement.

CEL’s management submitted a redundancy scheme in August last year which provided for the closure of three production sites and the elimination of more than 230 jobs. The CEL management was seeking the closure of the group companies Ecofibras Aranguren, Celulosas Aranguren and CEL Technologies & System. Only the group company Dermo Products Development was supposed to keep operating. CEL was approached by several parties interested in a potential takeover of the firm, and Lucart submitted the winning bid.

In order to gradually resume production, Lucart confirmed 146 jobs in the three CEL plants. The group’s business plan provided for the restart of two continuous tissue machines at the Aranguren plant, giving it an overall capacity of 50,000 metric tpy.