By Annie Zhu, Associate Editor, Pulp & Paper International magazine
SHANGHAI, CHINA,
April 2, 2009
(RISI) -
Voith Paper, one of the leading process providers for the paper industry, unveiled Paper City, a 70,900m² facility in Kunshan, Jiangsu province in early March this year, with an aim to increase its localization and to better serve the Asian market.
"The Voith Paper city you see today is the greatest location for Voith Paper, and is the largest location of its type within Voith Paper. There is nothing comparable where we have our systems business, rolls business, fabrics business and service business in one location. We would like to have this in Germany, but the market there is not growing so fast," says Dr. Sollinger, CEO and president of the company.
The completed Paper City is an integrated manufacturing center for all divisions, including systems, fabric and roll systems, fiber and environmental solutions , as well as automation.
"We plan to focus on localization and to exceed the Euro 100 million orders produced in China in the 2007 - 2008 financial year, with the opening of the Kunshan Voith Paper City today," says Dr Sollinger continues.
Voith Paper received Euro 600 million in orders in the 2007 - 2008 financial year, while Euro 100 million orders were taken in China. Voith Paper in China has 1000 staff members.
Moreover, Voith Paper City in Kunshan has also housed the regional headquarters for Voith Paper Asia since January 2009, a move to bring the company's Asia activities closer together, and to aim to further strengthen its market leadership in technology innovation and customer service.
"This is a significant milestone for us," says Dr. Sollinger. "The completion of Voith Paper City enables us to provide a one-stop shop for system solutions and services, a strategy that will result in more efficient resource sharing and customer orientation."
"The Paper City in Kunshan enables us to serve the China and Asia/Pacific market in an even more focused and efficient manner," says Mingming Liu, President of Voith Paper Asia. "In 2009, we will continue to lead the industry in developing innovative resource saving technologies. We are committed to supporting our customers, many of them Chinese papermakers, to expand in the global marketplace. We believe our dual strategy of providing energy saving technology and value added service will help them build sustainable and successful businesses."
About Paper City
We were shown the system business, rolls business and fabrics business during our visit at the Voith Paper City in Kunshan.
Currently, in the system plant, two paper machines are under preassembling, which are PM 27 (planned capacity: 450,000 tonnes/yr of linerboard) for Nine Dragons and Yue Yang Paper's PM 10 (capacity: 200,000 tonnes/yr of printing paper machines). Yueyang Paper's PM 9 will be preassembled in May and June 2009.
Nine dragons has postponed startups of its PM 27, PM 28, PM 29 and PM 30 to 2011 or later amid the world economic slump.
Yueyang Paper signed up Voith Paper to supply two new printing paper machines, PM 9 and PM 10, for a greenfield mill in Yueyang city, Hunan province, in China in 2008.
"We have two months left before delivery in May. Startup of the two machines is scheduled for August 18 this year," says Peter Koeberl, VP operations, Voith Paper China. Koeberl adds that Voith does not only manufacture machines, they also help customers to install, adjust and start up the machine successfully.
In light of the increasing market demand in the region, Voith Paper City has expanded its production capacity by introducing 11 new machines including four press weaving, two forming weaving, two heat setting (the biggest in the world), two carding lines, two seaming and one wrapper machine. Furthermore, four existing production machines have been updated. These extended and updated facilities have provided 44.4% more production capacity for press and 140% more for forming.
"Currently, we produce 5 million tonnes of fabrics, 80,000 m² forming wires, 35,000 m² drying fabric and 30,000 pieces of conveyers each year," says Tony Xu, general manager operations, Voith Paper Fabric & Roll Systems China.
Housing the complete paper-making expertise under one roof, Voith Paper City includes a new PU/CO casting machine as well as an additional new PU/CO curing oven. This results in double capacity for PU/CO production, 50% capacity increase in rubber production, and 15% grinding capacity increase through alignment over existing machinery. Voith Paper City has expanded its production capacity by including six new machines and a new mechanical roll service line which includes a hydraulic test unit (the biggest in the world) for crown controlled roll bodies. The new add-in autoclave is considered to be the biggest in Asia for rubber cover vulcanizing. In addition, a newly ordered grinding machine will increase the grinding capacity in 2010.
George Xu, manager operations of Voith Paper Fabric & Roll Systems China, adds that Voith Paper China produced 700 roll cover projects serving the domestic and Asian market last year.
Economic forecast vs environmental issues
Dr. Sollinger admits that Voith Paper is not immune to the world financial crisis, and about 25% of its business is affected. Voith Paper's business is divided into project business and service business, accounting for 50% each. "We are affected in 50% of the project business, but the service business is not affected, so we see a 25% reduction in our sales, but at the moment the sales are still very high due to our strong background," says Dr. Sollinger.
Dr. Sollinger believes that when the economic crisis is over he is very sure that China will be the first to come out of this crisis. "China will continue to grow, no question about that," he says.
However, Dr. Sollinger believes that China still has areas to work on such as environmental protection, though the government has been fully aware of the situation in the paper and pulp industry and has made more strict rules to regulate the market, for instance regarding water discharge.
Voith has provided customers with solutions which are environmental friendly. "This is not only environmental protection, this is also for economic reasons so that paper making cost can be reduced," says Dr. Sollinger.
After having good references in Europe, Voith would like to further explore the market in China. "We are having interesting discussions with customers and making proposals on what can be done on their existing machines to reduce water and energy consumption," he says.
On the other hand, Voith is having discussions and consultations with the Chinese government, as the company believes that some of the numbers that the government requires need to be more strict and clear so that mills can find the right solutions, according to Dr. Sollinger.
Voith sees three areas to provide technology: fiber (to increase recycled fiber from 50% to 70%), energy (to reduce energy consumption by 50%) and water (to reduce fresh water consumption to less than 1L/kg paper produced).
"Voith has the technology to produce any paper of high quality standard out of recycled paper, and you can't tell whether the paper is made from recycled paper or not," says Robert Kietaibl, senior VP, Voith Paper Fabric and Roll Systems Asia.
"However, in order to make this happen, we have to increase the paper recycling rate in China in order to produce more recycled paper. It's not only investment for the government, it will also help the country to create more jobs in paper collection. It is not difficult to do so and the prices of recycled paper are also good," says Kietaibl.
"China should not import waste paper, and they should import high technology," adds Kietaibl.
Suppliers' confidence in the Chinese pulp and pulp market clearly shows a sign of recovery in the industry in the near future.
