UPM will further improve the efficiency and competitiveness of the Kaukas pulp mill in Lappeenranta, Finland, by upgrading the mill's production process with a Euro 30 million investment. The upgrade will be targeted in the mill's fibre lines, recovery boiler, evaporation, bailing and wood handling. Erection of the main equipment and start-up are scheduled for the spring of 2018, as the company says in the press release received by Lesprom Network.
"Last year at the Kaukas mill we successfully completed a Euro 50 million investment, where we renewed both the pulp drying machines. Now that we have met targets with drying, we can improve the production efficiency with these targeted upgrades," says Sami Saarela, Vice President, Finland Operations, UPM Pulp.
After this new project, annual production capacity of the Kaukas mill will increase by 30,000 tonnes from the current 740,000 to 770,000 tonnes of softwood and birch pulp in 2019. The majority of its production is softwood.
"Demand for pulp continues to grow especially in paper grades that are used in consumer goods. Examples of such grades are tissue, label papers and board. In previous years we have replied to growing demand with similar targeted investments in all of our pulp mills and thus cost-efficiently increased our annual pulp production capacity altogether by more than 500,000 tonnes since 2013," says Saarela.
UPM Kaukas is an integrated modern mill producing sawn timber, softwood and hardwood pulp, coated magazine paper, renewable diesel and energy.
