New SC Product to Reduce Holmen’s Newsprint Production
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Holmen Paper, Stockholm, Sweden, is launching a new product in the SC segment in spring 2015 that will reduce the company’s production of newsprint. "This new initiative will quickly bring about a significant change in newsprint volumes," said sales and marketing director Karolina Svensson.
Intensive preparations are underway on PM 53 at Braviken Paper Mill outside Norrköping, Sweden, for the conversion work that is scheduled to begin at the end of January next year. PM 53 is Braviken’s largest machine, with an annual capacity of 310,000 metric tpy for the current product mix. The machine produces Holmen NEWS (newsprint) and Holmen XLNT—the uncoated magazine paper that makes up Holmen Paper’s single biggest product family.
It is the production of newsprint for export outside the Nordic region that is going to be reduced when the new product is introduced next year.
"We are predicting a rapid rise in volumes for the new product," says Karolina Svensson. "The aim is to achieve an annualized running rate for production and sales of more than 100,000 metric tons by the end of 2015.
"We’ll be reducing the production of newsprint at a corresponding rate, and in the longer term we’ll only keep the volumes to supply our local markets in Scandinavia."
Holmen Paper judges that its own measures, combined with previously announced capacity closures elsewhere in the market, will considerably improve capacity utilization for newsprint in 2015.
Holmen is a forest industry group that manufactures printing paper, paperboard, and sawn timber, and runs forestry and energy production operations. In 2013 Holmen’s net sales were approx. SEK 16 billion and the group has approximately 3,700 employees.
