By Joanne Potter, Editorial Director, EMEA and Asia
BRUSSELS,
Dec. 13, 2010
(RISI) -
True to form, Europe remains home to most of the world's fastest paper and board machines.
The past year has seen a number of new 24-hour speed records set by machines across Europe and Asia.
A few have hit major milestones, with 1,800 m/min reached by the quickest coated fine paper machine, 2,200 m/min for tissue, and the 1,600-m/min barrier surpassed in the containerboard sector.
Asia still trails Europe when it comes to which region has the greatest number of the speediest PMs, with the former seeing eight make the leader board and the latter 15. North and Latin America each still have just one representative in the charts.
However, Asia - more specifically China - is home to some of the world's biggest machines, and the extent of investment in new gear there in recent years suggests it may well overtake Europe in the speed stakes at some point in the future, as a raft of new PMs hit their stride.
Just eight years ago when I started surveying the fastest machines around the globe, the largest in terms of capacity was the 600,000 tonne/yr containerboard PM 6 at Papierfabrik Palm's Wörth mill in Germany, supplied by Metso.
Now, the crown is held by PM 2 at an APP China subsidiary's plant on Hainan Island. This Voith unit, which went commercial in October, was initially announced as having a capacity of 1 million tonnes/yr of coated fine paper. That was an impressive enough leap in less than a decade. In fact, it turns out this behemoth can make an astonishing 1.45 million tonnes/yr of paper.
The big three equipment suppliers' machines dominate the 2010 speed rankings. Metso and Voith PMs have bagged records in all categories, and tissue equipment specialist Andritz has two in that sector.
On the producer side, Finnish firm UPM has by far the most machines in the charts with five, all in the graphic paper arena. Germany's Papierfabrik Palm is one of only two players with a PM in both the paper and paperboard rankings. The Widjaja family is the other with three machines, one at an Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) unit and the other two at APP China subsidiaries.
Spotlight sector by sector
Looking at the individual paper and board grades, the newsprint sector has seen two new personal bests. Myllykoski improved on its own record by running at 2,020 m/min on PM 1 at its Hürth mill in Germany in September, to remain in pole position. And Holmen overtook Papierfabrik Palm to nab second place with a speed of 2,014 m/min on PM 62 at its Madrid facility in Spain.
Stora Enso is still tantalizingly close to reaching 2,000 m/min for the first time on a supercalendered (SC) paper machine, but no new highs were seen in this sector this time around, nor for lightweight coated (LWC) paper.
In the uncoated fine paper arena, the only change seen was a newcomer moving into the number three slot: Mondi reached 1,600 m/min on PM 18 at its Ruzomberok facility in Slovakia.
The coated woodfree paper chart was the scene of a major new achievement though. APP China subsidiary Gold East Paper threw down the gauntlet with 1,800 m/min set on PM 3 at its Dagang mill in China. This is head and shoulders above its nearest rival, PM 8 at UPM Kuusankoski in Finland, on 1,604 m/min. Another new entry, Japan's Hokuetsu Paper, ran at 1,600 m/min on PM 9 at its Niigata plant, taking third place.
Meanwhile, SCA has bagged the tissue crown, reaching 2,200 m/min on PM 2 at its Neuss factory in Germany. Although an old Beloit machine, dating back to 1972, it was overhauled by Andritz in 2004, which has enabled its speed to be ramped up.
The APP subsidiary Lontar Papyrus Pulp & Paper Industry set a new personal best of 2,140 m/min on PM 1 at Jambi, Indonesia, but this was not enough to raise it from third place in the tissue rankings.
The startup crew in front of Propapier's new PM 2, the fastest paperboard machine
Meanwhile on the paperboard side, Propapier took the speed honors with PM 2 at its Eisenhüttenstadt plant in Germany. A new entry into the chart since it only started up in March this year, the machine has already hit 1,624 m/min. PM 2 also has the distinction of being the world's biggest containerboard machine.
Cartonboard is the only sector where the fastest machines are still running at under 1,000 m/min. This looks likely to change very soon though, given that in August the APP China subsidiary Ningbo APP managed to produce 300 g/m² art board at 1,020 m/min for 17 hours.
This new high was reached on PM 6 at its Xiaogang mill in China, the current record holder for cartonboard at 950 m/min set in June 2008. This machine is another leviathan: at 1.2 million tonnes/yr its capacity is the second biggest in the world.
Thus APP China, an affiliate of Indonesia-based APP, boasts the two largest paper and board machines in existence, with a whopping combined capacity of 2.65 million tonnes/yr.
Another Chinese producer has entered the cartonboard rankings this year, taking joint second place with Nine Dragons Paper (Holdings) to seal the Chinese dominance in this sector. Shandong Bohui Paper, whose BM 2 only came online in December last year, reached 830 m/min whilst making 210 g/m² folding boxboard in September.
What's in store?
Compared to my first annual survey of the globe's fastest machines in 2003, the industry has seen a fair few changes.
Back then, the tissue sector was still where the quickest equipment was to be found, but no other machine had surpassed 2,000 m/min. And the fastest cartonboard unit (PM 2 at Oji Paper's Fuji mill in Japan) had a rate of just 650 m/min, a far cry from the 950 m/min record held by Ningbo APP.
Looking ahead, as machines get even quicker, productivity looks set to climb. In fact, there may be quite some jumps in store, given that Metso and Voith both have pilot machines capable of running at up to 3,000 m/min. Watch out for some racy times ahead.
