May 2008
By Savitri Patel, Associate Editor, PPI This Week
Not many new mills can boast of having relocated from one site to another and still starting up ahead of schedule. Myllykoski's Plattling Papier is an exception. On January 31, 2008, Myllykoski Group was clearly proud to welcome guests to its site in Bavaria to see its new, 380,000 tonne/yr uncoated publication papers machine in action. "Startup was very smooth," says project director Caius Murtola. "We had paper on the reel on December 1, 2007."
"How fast this has all happened is really a big miracle," he adds. "The decision to relocate the project from Opatovice-nad-Labem in the Czech Republic was taken in October 2006, and we had paper from the machine in 13 months."
At one stage the biggest investment project in Bavaria, with over 1,000 building workers, craftsmen and technicians on site, Plattling Papier will in future be the second biggest production facility in Germany.
"We had promised customers to be able to supply them paper after the first quarter of 2008," explains president and CEO Sverre Norrgård. He confesses, "As well as good skills and competence we had some good luck – last winter in this part of Germany was very good for building, which helped us to be a little bit quicker."
Focus on quality
The 170 m long machine has a maximum trim width at winder of 10.5 m, and a production speed of 1,700 m/min. "We didn't want to be fast," states Murtola, "We wanted to have the best quality."
In order to achieve this, Plattling Papier will rely on a three-pronged formula of "pressurized groundwood pulp, our calender concept, and Myllykoski's supercalendered (SC) paper competence."
Unlike many SC mills, Plattling Papier uses pressure grinders rather than refiners for pulping wood. "Pressurized groundwood pulp has superior optical qualities, top printability and low specific energy consumption – one third less than thermomechanical pulp, the more commonly used raw material for SC," Murtola explains.
The site also boasts the world's first 14 roller online SC-A calender combined with moisture gradient technology to ensure excellent gloss and extreme smoothness. "Finally, Plattling Papier benefits from the expertise Myllykoski has developed in SC papers," he adds.
The new plant, for financial reasons a subsidiary of Myllykoski's alliance partner Rhein Papier, has also profited from support from all the other mills in the Myllykoski group throughout the whole project schedule.
Plattling Papier employs 114 people directly, one third of whom are former employees of Myllykoski's shuttered MD Dachau lightweight coated paper mill, also in Germany, closed in June 2007 as part of a scheme to boost profitability. The woodyard, shipping, logistics and water treatment are all outsourced, as well as maintenance, which is handled by a 40-strong on site team from the project's main supplier, Metso. Other suppliers include Andritz, ABB and Demag.
Prime location
Wood for the plant comes mainly from Germany, with some from Austria and some from the Czech Republic. Although the location, a new machine house on the same site as Myllykoski's MD Papier some 120 km east of Munich, was not the original first choice, Murtola is convinced that the positioning of the plant is a major plus. "We have European spruce wood reserves in reach, excellent logistics both road and rail, domestic and international, and we are situated at the gateway to central and eastern Europe. Our major customers are close and we will benefit from synergies with MD Papier."
The firm is looking for long-term relationships with both the established western European market and with the growing customer base in Central Europe. Norrgård adds: "We have always seen paper as a regional business. We have a sort of church tower policy: we want to be able to climb to the top of the tower and see all our customers."
The group is aiming to produce 285,000-300,000 tonnes of SC paper in 2008. Wolfgang Bucher, sales director of the corporation's sales network, states, "There was a 4% growth in SC demand last year and we expect it to be even stronger this year. Taking the closure of Stora Enso's Reisholz mill into account, I would say without Plattling Papier the market would be undersupplied this year."
Stora Enso permanently shut its Reisholz supercalendered paper mill near Düsseldorf, Germany at the end of 2007. The company announced last year that the site's two supercalendered paper machines, the 115,000 tonne/yr PM 1 and the 100,000 tonne/yr PM 2, are to be scrapped. The shutdown was announced in 2006, following an asset review as part of a program to improve profitability. Production at Stora Enso's 245,000 tonne/yr Berghuizer uncoated fine paper plant in the Netherlands was also stopped as a result of the review.
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