Metsä Board Starts Installation of New Folding Boxboard Machine at Husum

Metsä Board, Finland, announced earlier this week that it is continuing a EUR 170 million investment program at its Husum mill in Sweden. From mid-October until the beginning of January 2016 the company is installing a new folding boxboard machine, BM 1, at the mill and closing down paper machines PM 6 and PM 7.

"Resource efficiency and product safety have become even more important in consumer, retail-ready, and food service packaging. As a result, customer demand for our pure fresh forest fiber-based paperboards is growing. We want to respond by offering our customers high-quality paperboards also developed for new kinds of end-uses," said CEO Mika Joukio.

Metsä Board is marketing the new board machine’s 400,000 metric typ capacity to the Americas, as well as to food service end-uses such as cups, plates, and trays globally. The new board machine will also allow the company to optimize production at its mills in Finland and improve overall availability of high-quality paperboards.

This year many improvements supporting the company’s growth have already been carried out at the Husum mill site, both at the pulp mill and at its own port. Paper machine PM 8 has been switched, as BM 2, to production of white fresh forest fiber linerboard, with a capacity of 300,000 metric tpy. Metsä Board is marketing this linerboard output mainly to the Americas and Europe both for food and general packaging. The company is also continuing uncoated fine paper business reels production on BM 2, planned to cease by the end of 2017 at the latest. Based on the increasing linerboard production and the closure of paper machines PM 6 and PM 7, approximately 500,000 metric tpy of paper production capacity will disappear from the market by the end of 2015.

In accordance with its strategy, Metsä Board is focusing on fresh forest fiber based folding boxboards and linerboards, developed as the perfect fit for consumer goods, retail-ready, and food service packaging. Following the Husum investments, the company’s paperboard capacity will exceed 2 million metric tpy, from the beginning of 2016.