M-real completes rebuild at Kyro mill in Finland, increases the site's capacity to 190,000 tonnes/yr of folding boxboard

ESPOO, Finland, Nov. 25, 2011 (Press Release) - M-real has successfully completed the rebuild of its Kyro mill in Finland, where it makes the high quality folding boxboards Carta Elega and Avanta Prima - especially recommended for beautycare and healthcare packaging. The rebuild increases the mill's capacity by 40,000 tonnes per annum to 190,000 tpa, and is part of M-real's investment programme, targeted at improving availability and service to customers.

"The increased capacity will allow us to offer our customers better service, with shorter lead times on orders and greater availability," says Mika Joukio, Senior Vice President and Head of M-real Consumer Packaging. "We believe demand for our fresh forest fibre products will continue to increase, due to their purity, lightweight and sustainability."

In a separate joint venture, M-real is building a new biopower plant next to the Kyro mill, to replace fossil natural gas with CO2 neutral wood. This is predominantly bark, chips, stumps and other discarded wood together with mill broke. The biopower plant will also provide heating for the neighbouring district of Hämeenkyrӧ. After start-up of the plant in autumn 2012, CO2 emissions from the Kyro mill will be reduced by approximately 100,000 tpa, equivalent to the annual emissions of around 60,000 cars.

M-real's investment programme, which will increase its total folding boxboard capacity by 150,000 tpa to 935,000 tpa, also includes a rebuild at the Simpele mill finalised in June 2011, and the rebuild of its Äänekoski board machine due for completion in spring 2012. Together with EUR 16 million invested at M-real Kemi to improve the quality of its white-top kraftliners and the biopower plant, total investment in the Consumer Packaging business area will exceed EUR 100 million during 2011-2012.