Norske Skog,Norway, still plans to go ahead with the tissue project at the company's Bruck mill in Austria that it announced in July 2015. As reported by EUWID (Germany) this week, in its Q3 2016 quarterly report, Norske Skog explained that the project was progressing and the company was "in partner discussions for a brownfield conversion" of the newsprint line at the Bruck mill to tissue. The company expects tissue production to ramp-up in 2018. 

Norske Skog founded a joint venture with the Italian tissue paper and products manufacturer Rotocart for this project. However, the JV-partnership was terminated in the first half of 2016. According to sources close to the project, the partnership failed due to differing views on project financing, ownership rights, and occupational issues, EUWID explained.

 

 

 

The tissue project reportedly would discontinue newsprint production at the Bruck mill by the end of 2017, reducing market supply by 125,000 metric tons. Together with the announced machine closures at the Holmen Madrid and UPM Schwedt mills, the closure of PM 3 at Bruck is expected to further tighten supply on the European newsprint market in the year to come and create favorable conditions for price hikes, Norske Skog explained.

 

In its Q3 2016 results webcast, Sven Ombudstsvedt, Norske Skog president and CEO, announced that Norske Skog was aiming for at least a EUR 30 per metric ton price increase for newsprint from 2016 into 2017 and that the company would also seek price improvements for other products in Continental Europe. Prices in the U.K. would see even higher mark-ups due to the weakness of the pound sterling, he added.