Thailand’s Double A Looking for Buyers for Tissue Mill in China

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Leading Thai pulp and paper firm Double A is seeking buyers for its tissue mill in Dafeng, Yancheng city, in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu. 

The assets to be sold include a 30,000-mtpy TM, two rewinders, seven converting lines, sewage treatment equipment and the land the mill occupies.

Their estimated value has not been revealed.

The company runs the plant through a joint venture in which it owns a 95.86 percent stake, with Chinese local government-owned Jiangsu Dafeng Haigang Holdings Limited as the minority partner.

A company executive said that the mill has been out of production since May. The sole TM there was commissioned in the second half of 2016.

The A.Celli unit, which has a trim width of 2.81 m and a design speed of 2,000 m/min, was sourced second-hand from Shanghai Potential, which closed its Shanghai tissue mill in 2012.

About half its output was converted on-site into toilet paper and facial wipes, while the other half was sold in jumbo rolls.

The tissue machine at the Dafeng mill was supposed to be the first leg of Double A’s diversification into the tissue sector. The firm is a leading cut-size paper supplier in Asia.

It got approval from the local authorities in 2015 to build a total of 120,000 mtpy of tissue paper capacity at the Dafeng site. But further expansions were shelved due to oversupply pressure in China’s tissue market, the Double A contact explained.

While the country's total tissue capacity grew from 10.3 million mtpy in 2015 to 13.1 million mtpy in 2018, overall operating rates dipped from 78 percent to 73 percent, according to the China National Household Paper Industry Association.

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