HAROLD M. CODY

FINISHING CONVERTING

A major rebuild of a roll handling line at a Canadian uncoated printing paper mill improves quality, cuts cost and, protects the product.

LATIN AMERICA

While buffeted by financial forces recently, Latin America continues to look at expanding its pulp and paper industry. A review of projected capacity growth in the region illustrates that it intends to remain a major player and outlines some of the challenges and opportunities facing this region.

INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Pulp and paper producers continue to invest in technology to better manage their operations. One major company’s views on its experiences with a supply chain management system illustrates the importance of effectively managing this technology to achieve the desired results.

 

How do we stack up?

Two articles in this issue begin to explore the all-important question of how North American, and particularly U.S. mills, stack up globally against the competition. And make no mistake; the competition is fierce.

A 660,000 ton coater! What really propelled me to write this column on the subject of competitiveness was a BGO (blinding glimpse of the obvious) I had about how the growing paper industry in Asia is impacting global competition for papermakers. Recently, Pulp & Paper Project Report reported that Asia Pulp & Paper Co. had begun trial production on a 600,000 mtpy (661,000 short tpy) off-machine coater at its Gold East Paper mill in Dagang, China. This huge coater, with a 9.77 m width, and four coating stations, has a 2,000 m/min design speed. It’s even more amazing if it’s looked at in a slightly different context. The capacity of this one coater is the equivalent to 11.7% of the entire U.S. capacity for coated freesheet in 1999. Whew! Might have a low cost position? And be able to ship globally if needed?

In this issue the two articles that provide insight into where the industry stands competitively look at the pulp side of the business and at the papermaking side.

How competitive are the U.S. industry’s papermachines—all 1,164 of them (including construction grades)? An introductory article looks in a general way at this question by analyzing two key segments of the industry. It looks at competitiveness based on design specs and technology in place for papermachines in the U.S. making containerboard and uncoated freesheet, and compares this to “state of the art” technology for the production of these grades. These grades were chosen as representative of the industry for this overview because of the huge amount of tonnage they account for. In future articles in Pulp & Paper through the fall and into next year, we’ll look at this on a grade by grade basis, to assess where we stand, and where we need to go, in more detail.

What does the data show? Well, as you might expect, it’s not all rosy. They clearly illustrate that as companies begin to show better returns, i.e. improved profits, investment in existing capacity is a must. Our managers and engineers have to be given the opportunity to invest to upgrade existing facilities. Otherwise, even larger, reasonably competitive mills will fall prey to competing products made on not only lower cost machines, but on machines that employ better technology and simply make better products.

A second story in this issue touches on the current status of environmental spending at U.S. mills. The focus is an assessment of how far we’ve come, and how far there is to go, in shifting our bleached kraft mills over to elemental chlorine free bleaching. A quick tally of the results shows that as of today, 70% of U.S. bleached kraft mills are ECF capable. An additional 26% still need to be converted. The remainder of capacity, about 3 to 4%, is not ECF capable, and is reported to be planned for shutdown. Again, a point to take here is that the cost to shift these mills to ECF is mostly behind the industry. However, the measure of the effect of this, i.e. taking money away from other projects, is yet to come.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letters to the Editor

Dear Harold:

The headline for the article in the May issue, “The Kirkniemi, Finland and Gratkorn, Austria mills employ first commercial free jet coaters,” is misleading and wrong. Through a long time partnership with Consolidated Papers, Inc., the free jet principle was a common, major development between Voith Sulzer and CPI. Our first installation was in 1993 at CPI, and by the time the above installations were operating, seven Voith Sulzer units were installed and running.

Linda Quick
Mkt. & Bus. Dev.
Voith Sulzer Paper Technology

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