Wausau Paper will spend $27 million to
provide tape-backing paper production capabilities
at its mill in Brainerd, MN. Scheduled
for completion in 1Q11, the rebuilt machine
will be used to produce a wide range of unsaturated
tape-backing paper Ñ the base stock
used to produce masking tape. It will retain
the ability to produce premium printing and
writing products including its Astrobrights®
line of brightly colored paper. Wausau Paper
was formed by the January 1, 2010 combination
of the Specialty Products and Printing &
Writing businesses into a single operating
unit focused on profitable growth in five
strategic markets Ñ food, tape, print & color,
liner, and industrial. Wausau also makes
away-from-home towel and tissue products.
Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation says it
expects to exit from Chapter 11 by early summer
2010. Its US and Canadian subsidiaries
filed voluntary petitions for reorganization
under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code
and under the Companies' Creditors
Arrangement Act (CCAA) in Canada on
January 26, 2009.
Canada's Kruger Inc.
will stop production of coated and SC paper at
its Trois Rivieres, QC, mill for good on June
11. The mill will continue to make newsprint.
The December 31 shut-down of a directory
paper machine at the nearby Wayagamack
mill will continue indefinitely but it will continue
making coated papers. About 440 jobs
will be lost. Kruger recently shut down four
newsprint machines at Corner Brook, NL.
AbitibiBowater shut its Gatineau, QC,
newsprint mill.
SFK Pulp Fund which has
a bleached softwood pulp mill in St. Felicien,
QC, has changed its name to Fibrek Inc. The
Fund was set up as an income trust but it is
now a taxpaying corporation. The single
largest shareholder is Fairfax Financial
Holdings Ltd. The company said it is working
at top capacity as are its two smaller US mills,
all as a result of the recent increase in demand
for pulp, whose price is currently about
$US1000 a tonne.
At the end of 2009,
Finland's UPM, Metsäliitto Cooperative, Mreal
Corporation, and Oy Metsä-Botnia AB
(Botnia) completed a transaction through
which Metsäliitto's and Botnia's shares of the
Fray Bentos pulp mill and the eucalyptus
plantation forestry company Forestal Oriental
in Uruguay were transferred to UPM. In the
transaction, UPM sold approximately 30% in
Botnia to Metsäliitto and acquired 1.2% of
the energy company Pohjolan Voima Oy from
Botnia. Following the transaction, UPM owns
91% of the Fray Bentos pulp mill, 100% of
Forestal Oriental and about 17% of Botnia.
A February news brief from Wood Resources
International LLC says that pulp and paper
manufacturers worldwide consumed 75 million
tons of woody biomass for energy in
2009, according to a report in the Wood
Resource Quarterly. Since 2006, energy generated
from biomass has gone up over 50%,
2009 accounting for 18% of the total energy
consumption by this industry sector.
Fraser
Papers sold its Thurso, QC, hardwood pulp
mill for $C3 million to Fortress Specialty
Cellulose Inc., a unit of Fortress Paper which
makes security papers. Fortress will spend
$C153 million to convert the mill to produce
200,000 ad tonnes/y of dissolving pulp to produce
rayon for textiles and add a 25-MW
biomass cogeneration plant at the mill site.
Electricity will be sold to Hydro Quebec.
Fortress also said it was going to convert PM1
at its Dresden Papier subsidiary to manufacture
bank note paper. PI