Segezha plans to boost its output of sack kraft and to enter the softwood kraft pulp market in the next few years. The company has signed up Andritz for a Euro 10 million ($12 million) makeover of pulp line #4 at its mill in Segezha, near the Finnish border in northwest Russia. And the firm is set to splash out a further Euro 410 million on its operations by 2010. Andritz will replace the pulp line's chip feed system, cooking mechanism, screen room and vacuum filters. "It will be like a new pulp line," an Andritz spokesman said. "There will be lower washing losses and a lower shive content," he added. The rebuild will also raise the line's capacity of unbleached pine kraft pulp from 600 tonnes/day to 900 tonnes/day. Andritz will carry out the work during a one-month shutdown next January and expects the unit to be in full production by April. The Segezha mill houses three other unbleached pine kraft pulp lines. Line #3 has a capacity of 600 tonnes/day. Lines #1 and #2 used to churn out 300 tonnes/day in the early 1990s but have lain idle for over six years. "They have faced extreme cold and they are very rusty," the Andritz spokesman said, "They will have to be scrapped in the future." Pulp lines #3 and #4 feed the mill's three paper machines. PM 9 has a capacity of 100,000 tonnes/yr of standard unbleached sack kraft paper and PM 11 has a capacity of 110,000 tonnes/yr of the same grade, while PM 10 has a capacity of 79,000 tonnes/yr of extensible unbleached sack kraft. The Segezha facility also houses a 750 million sack/yr converting plant which produces two, three, four and five-ply valve sacks with polyethylene or polypropylene layers. The firm's pulp and paper output is set to jump up in the coming years as cash flows into its coffers. The Republic of Karelia's government and the Moscow-based Sberbank have signed a letter of intent to lend the firm Euro 410 million between 2003 and 2010. Segezha expects to sign the loan agreement and get its hands on an initial Euro 90 million tranche shortly. The Karelian authorities have also offered the company a tax- break scheme to ease future repayments. Details of the project are under wraps for now. But the firm has hinted that a new bleached softwood kraft market pulp line is on the cards. The company has approached Jaakko Poyry to carry out a feasibility study by the end of the year. "We are awaiting the final go-ahead for the research," a spokesman for the Finnish consultancy firm said. The Andritz source speculated that the cash would also be used to rebuild pulp line #3 along the same lines as unit #4. He added that, "Any new bleached softwood kraft pulp line could sell its output to local customers such as the Kondopoga plant. But a new line is also likely to be used to expand paper production at the Segezha mill itself." The Russian firm has also entered talks with Voith Paper and Metso Paper over potential rebuilds of its three PMs. "We have discussed some ideas for a capacity increase and quality improvements but nothing is clear at this stage," a Metso source indicated. Segezha is also in talks with Germany's Windmoller & Holscher (W&H) for an overhaul of the mill's converting facilities. W&H installed a new sack kraft converting line at the Segezha plant last August.