CANADA Groupe Laperrière & Verreault (GL&V) has completed the takeover of the Swedish company, Alfa Laval Celleco. The Swedish firm supplies filtration and pulp cleaning technologies to the paper industry. The new subsidiary will be called GL&V/Celleco. The move will help GL&V consolidate its presence in the US market, where Celleco records nearly half its sales.

CHINA Parker Hannifin will be joining up with Voith Sulzer to work on the Dagang project in the Juangsu province of China. Voith Sulzer is to supply two woodfree PMs, while Parker Hannifin will provide stainless steel tube fittings for the hydraulic systems. The Dagang plant is set to produce 920,000 tons/yr of woodfree papers when the two PMs come on stream in 1999.

CHINA Sweden's SCA and US giant, Weyerhaeuser, are to open another joint-venture box plant in China. The corrugated packaging plant will be located in Wuhan. The foundations are already complete and the plant is scheduled to open early next year. SCA and Weyerhaeuser are working with a local partner on the joint venture. SCA and Weyerhaeuser opened another box plant in Shanghai in May.

FRANCE Sonoco's French subsidiary, Sofratube, has sold its convolute and edgeboard businesses to the Paul/Beillard group. The deal covers Sofratube's St Hilaire plant, but excludes the site's spiral tube operations, which will be transferred to other Sonoco units. The move will allow Sonoco to focus its capital investment in fewer sites.

GERMANY Wilhelm E H Biesterfeld, BU Specialty Chemicals has become the new distributor of polymer additives for the US company, Great Lakes Chemical Europe. The German company began covering the German, Austrian and Swiss markets from 1 October 1998. Great Lakes' products are suitable for use in the paper industry.

INDIA ITC Bhadrachalam is looking at outline plans to expand production at its plant near Hyderabad. The company stressed that the plan is not definite as yet, but the scheme could push capacity to 300,000 tons/yr by 2000 and 500,000 tons/yr by 2005. The mill produces 200,000 tons/yr of various paper and board grades, including woodfree paper, machine glazed (MG) poster paper and coated and uncoated board.

JAPAN The Russian company, Sakhalin Holdings, has delayed plans to build a 360,000 ton/yr pulp mill on Sakhalin island, north of Japan. The firm has struggled to find financing for the project as the economic climate has hit investment in Russia and around the world. The project was originally a joint venture between Sakhalin Holdings, another Russian firm, Sakhalinlesprom, and Korea's Hansol. The Korean company was due to buy 30% of the mill's output.

KOREA Korea Development Leasing has signed an agreement on the sale of a 150,000 ton/yr testliner machine. The company said the PM will go to a firm in east Asia, but did not disclose the name of the buyer. Korea Development Leasing bought the machine from Valmet, but the company has found it difficult to find a buyer in Korea due to the economic crisis.

NEW ZEALAND Tasman Pulp & Paper is installing a full Elixir software system from Majiq Systems and Software at its mill in New Zealand. The system will allow Tasman to be linked with other Fletcher Challenge subsidiaries so that information can be shared throughout the group. Order entry, production, invoicing, warehousing and shipping activities will be coordinated across multiple mills when the new equipment is installed in the fourth quarter 1998.

RUSSIA Svetogorsk Pulp and Paper has started an extensive rebuild of PM 4, despite the current economic and political drama being played out in Russia. PM 4's capacity is set to leap from 160,000 tons/yr to 200,000 tons/yr following the rebuild. The machine produces mainly reel and offset printing papers. Valmet is the main supplier for the project. Svetogorsk also has plans to push PM 4's capacity up to 250,000 tons/yr, but the scheme has yet to be finalized.

SOUTH AFRICA Sappi is deferring plans to list its South African-based Timber Industries on the Johannesburg stock exchange. The decision follows recent economic turmoil on global stock exchanges. Sappi plans to list the division when market conditions are more favorable.

SWEDEN SCA has joined up with Amnesty International in a Radio Relief fund-raising campaign. SCA is the main sponsor of a number of charity events to be held in the fourth quarter. The aim is to increase awareness of human rights and to raise money for prisoners of conscience and their families.

THAILAND Central Paper has restarted PMs 3 and 6 at its mill near Bangkok. The two machines have a combined capacity of 2,700 tons/month of uncoated printing/writing paper. The mill has a total capacity of 68,000 tons/yr. Central plans to restart its remaining three machines in January next year.

TURKEY The Viking group has ordered a rewinder-combiner for its new tissue mill from the Italian supplier, Celli. The equipment will be used for parent reels with a maximum diameter of 2,500 mm and a
web width of 2,700 mm. Operating speed is expected to reach up to 2,000 m/min.

UK The UK company, Ames Paper Convertors, is trading under the new name of Intercut. The company has been reorganized following the takeover of Intercut in February this year. The new firm is the UK's largest independent paper and board trade converter. Intercut is part of the same group as BKH Paper Converters.

UK M&Y Air Systems has delivered a new trim handling system to Arjo Wiggins' Idem mill in Ely, South Wales. The mill has also installed a new salvage winder to replace several existing winders. With a maximum operating speed of 1,000 m/min, the winder can handle material between 50-200 g/m.