March 2008
By Justin Toland, Editor
After a quarter of a Millennium in the textiles business, Turkey's Marmara Group has made a bold move into tissue. Last November, the group's latest business, Lila Kagit (Lila Tissue), started up a 70,000-tonne/yr Metso Paper tissue machine at its facility in Çorlu, a site equidistant (125 km) from Istanbul, the Greek border and the border with Bulgaria.
"The area has a lot of water and a suitable climate," explains Lila Kagit chairman, Orhan Ögücü. Another advantage is "an easily accessible labour force," he says. The main reason though for choosing Çorlu was that Marmara Group already had a large complex there, including textile mills, dye houses and a cogeneration plant.
Why tissue?
"In 2000, we realized the Turkish textile industry would not grow," explains Orhan. Lower cost competition from the likes of China is the reason. "So we looked around for other industries to invest in [as well]," he says.
The group decided to invest first in a natural gas-powered cogen plant at Çorlu, "with the idea in the back of our minds to go into the paper business," recounts Orhan.
The 18 MW Wärtsilä combined heat and power (CHP) plant started up in early 2006.
In 2004, Marmara Group carried out tissue feasibility studies and in mid-2005 decided to invest in the sector. Lila Kagit was born.
Lila Kagit's strategy is to convert half of the parent rolls it produces and sell the other half to 'local' customers. That means "eastern Europe, the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East," explains mill manager, Erkan Tirnavali.
Getting started
First civil works at the site were in August 2006. Mechanical erection commenced in February 2007, and PM 1 started up on November 2, 2007.
The 5.7-m wide Advantage DCT 200 machine with an 18ft (5.5 m) Yankee cylinder has a basis weight range of 13.5-36 g/m². So far it is mainly producing 17 g/m² toilet tissue paper. "Within the 45 days of the learning curve, we reached 1,700 m/min (running 17 g/m²)," notes Erkan proudly. "It's a record startup for Turkey," believes project assistant Alp Ögücü.
"Metso has implemented the highest technology it has available," says Orhan. Lila Kagit has opted for a suction press roll, although the machine is shoe press ready and a future upgrade is likely.
"Before making all technology decisions we visited almost 25 tissue mills in Europe and the US," points out Orhan.
Once the choice of paper machine was made, "We contacted all the rewinder manufacturers on the market. We found that Focus was the most suitable for us," the Lila Kagit chairman explains.
Unusually, the new mill opted for two Focus rewinders running side-by-side. The large rewinder is 5.7 m wide and offers "very good speed levels", says Erkan. "On the narrow – 3 m wide – machine, we have achieved up to 1,600 m/min with 3-play toilet roll," he adds.
The machine could run faster, notes the mill manager, "But due to the learning level of the operators we have kept it at a lower speed."
Only five of the operational staff have previous tissue mill experience, but Erkan and one of the shift supervisors have more than 40 years' experience between them. Metso has also helped a lot with supervision and the startup of the machine, says the mill manager.
Lila Kagit is running four-shifts in paper production and three shifts in converting. The mill employs some 230 people (including converting).
"Efficiency will increase greatly once converting is running fully, but we knew about this from the design stage. That's why we have two rewinding lines to reduce some of the bottleneck, explains Erkan.
"We will get more efficiency as we start our converting. We will get more efficiency as we synchronize with our customers," believes Alp.
A range of products
The converting operation consists of six separate lines with a total capacity of 35,000 tonnes/yr. Pride of place goes to a Perini (KPL) Time line, which will churn out 18,000-20,000 tonnes/yr of toilet rolls and kitchen towels.
Lila Kagit has also installed four napkin lines (two from Perini – one with printing - and two from S-Tech) and one hanky line (also S-Tech). There is one converting corridor for rolled products and one for folded products.
Following successful trials, the converting lines were set to swing into full operation by the end of February 2008. "We will be producing mainly branded ('Lila') products, with some private label and some away-from-home," reveals Erkan. "We don't make facial tissue for our converting, but we can produce parent rolls if there is demand."
The mill has three wrapping lines and 4,000 m² of storage for converted products. "It's not so big," says the mill manager. "Our aim is to make paper and stock it at our distributors." The roll storage area is 6,000 m² (4,000 tonnes).
Logistics at the mill and deliveries have been fully outsourced to Borusan, one of Turkey's largest logistics firms. The u-shaped plant is on one level, all covered and all flat, to facilitate ease-of-movement of paper and forklifts.
The paper machine runs on 100% virgin fiber, sourced via the spot market from pulp mills worldwide (mainly USA, Canada, Scandinavia and Morocco). Stock prep equipment was supplied by Metso and GL&V, while Sicma delivered the pulp infeed lines and Scanpump the pumps. Automation comes from Metso and Siemens, fabrics from Voith.
Unusually for a paper manufacturer, Lila Kagit carried out much of the engineering work at Çorlu itself, including the general layout, cabling, piping, cranes, sprinklers, lighting and aircon. It also co-designed the drives with Metso and integrated the tissue mill with the energy plant.
The Marmara Group intends to boost output from the cogen facility to 54 MW "very soon", says Orhan. The chairman is also extremely proud of another utility: wastewater treatment. "We are the only mill in Turkey to have constructed the wastewater treatment plant before the mill," he points out. This plant handles dye house effluent as well as effluent from the tissue mill at the Çorlu complex.
Second line ahead?
Lila Kagit may be new to the tissue business, but the firm is already looking ahead. "We have laid the foundations and prepared all the utilities for two machines [at Çorlu]," explains Alp. "Our plan is to start building a second machine in 2009 and to double converting capacity the same year." Pre-contract agreements are already in place with Metso (for PM 2) and Perini (for a second roll converting line).
Whether these plans are given the green light later this year will depend on "micro and macro economic conditions", says Alp. "It very much depends on our success in the market."
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