Kimberly-Clark Shuts Tissue Mill in Shanghai

According to Fastmarkets RISI, Kimberly-Clark has permanently closed its tissue paper mill in Shanghai, China, and is looking for buyers for the paper machine and converting lines at the site. The American multinational personal care company’s mill ceased production in October.

According to Fastmarkets RISI’s Mill Asset Database, the plant in Songjiang district houses a 24,000 mtpy tissue machine. Commissioned in 1994, the Valmet machine has a trim width of 2.4 m and a design speed of 1,100 m/min. The TM and several converting lines for making toilet, facial and napkin products at the Shanghai site have been put up for sale. Their estimated value has not been revealed.

Kimberly-Clark will need to dispose of any non-fixed assets, including the production lines, by May 2021, a company spokesperson told Fastmarkets RISI.

“The local authorities had been proposing that the mill be shut down since 2015 as its location was no longer suitable for industrial production,” said the spokesperson.

Once sitting on the outskirts of Shanghai, the mill is now surrounded by residential and commercial areas, as the megacity has rapidly expanded in the past three decades. Its closure entails the end of Kimberly-Clark’s tissue paper production in China.

The spokesperson emphasized that the company’s presence in the Chinese tissue market will not be affected as it will continue to serve Chinese consumers through its original equipment manufacturing (OEM) suppliers.

Closures in Shanghai: Kimberly-Clark’s move has left the entire city of Shanghai with only one paper mill – Shanghai Orient Champion Huajie Paper’s 140,000 mtpy tissue paper plant in Jinshan district. As China’s most populous city with a population of around 30 million, the metropolis is on track to become an international financial hub and its economy is shifting away from manufacturing, especially from industries that involve high energy consumption and high emissions.

The past few years have witnessed the shutdown of many manufacturers there, including paper mills. Taiwan’s Cheng Loong permanently stopped production at its 450,000 mtpy recycled containerboard mill in Pudong, Shanghai in 2017. That followed the municipal government’s order to replace coal with a cleaner fuel to feed its cogeneration plant, which the company reckoned would be too costly. The mill was later sold to a Chinese real estate firm for redevelopment.

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