Metsä Board starts installation of new folding boxboard machine at Husum

BM1 is being installed from mid-October through to the beginning of January 2016. At the same time it is closing down the paper machines PM6 and PM7.

Metsä Board is marketing the new board machine’s 400,000tpa 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.

Metsä Board CEO Mika Joukio said: ‘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.’

Improvements supporting the company’s growth have already been carried out at the Husum site this year, both at the pulp mill and at its own port. Paper machine PM8 has been switched, as BM2, to production of white fresh forest fiber linerboard, with a capacity of 300,000tpa. Metsä Board is also marketing this linerboard output mainly to the Americas, as well as Europe, both for food and general packaging.

Based on the increasing linerboard production and the closure of paper machines PM6 and PM7, approximately 500,000tpa 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. Following the Husum investments, the company’s paperboard capacity will exceed two million tonnes a year from the beginning of 2016.