By Rita Yao, Associate Editor, PPI Asia
The firm is making the investment to meet growing demand for the grade in the country and to replace imports.
Glassine paper is mainly used for protective packaging of electronic products, pharmaceuticals, foodstuffs, tobacco, labels and tapes.
Demand for the grade reached 100,000 tonnes in China last year, of which 60% were imports, according to Minfeng Special Paper.
The company is the country's largest producer of glassine paper, supplying 16,059 tonnes of the grade to the domestic market in 2010. It believes that demand for the value-added specialty paper grade will grow in step with China's economic strength.
Minfeng Special Paper plans to invest RMB 241 million in revamping a machine, PM 17, at its mill in Jiaxing city, Zhejiang province. The overhaul is aimed at enabling the unit to switch production from copy paper used in color printing to glassine paper, at a potential rate of 30,000 tonnes/yr.
The work is expected to start by the end of this year and will take 18 months to complete.
The firm also aims to rebuild the facility's swing PM 21 to make more glassine paper and base paper for labels and aluminum foils.
The unit, which currently has a copy paper capacity of 65,000 tonnes/yr, features a 40,000 tonne/yr supercalender (SC). But the SC unit's processing capacity is reduced to 30,000 tonnes/yr when it is making glassine paper.
The company therefore decided to add another 30,000 tonne/yr SC unit on PM 21, in a bid to boost its glassine paper capacity.
The rebuild is due to kick off by the end of this year and expected to be done in one year's time.
Meanwhile, the company is upgrading two other machines at the plant.
It is revamping an idled machine, PM 8, to produce 8,000 tonnes/yr of medical packaging paper.
The work is due to be completed soon and the unit will be restarted in the second half of this year. The rebuild will cost RMB 30 million.
PM 8 produced copy paper before it halted production at the end of 2008.
Another project underway is the upgrade of a cigarette paper unit, PM 20. The re-jig is aimed at raising the quality of the machine's output, but its capacity will be reduced from 15,000 tonnes/yr to 12,000 tonnes/yr as a result.
The overhaul is slated to be completed by the end of July at a cost of RMB 26 million.
