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The Nova Scotia mill and its Swedish parent company invest C$750 million in an effort to tap into North America's lucrative high-end publication papers market
LET THE DIFFERENTIATING BEGIN! With the startup of its super-fast new PM2 at Port Hawkesbury, N.S., Swedish paper giant Stora (now even bigger with the recently announced merger with Finland's Enso Oy-see news story, page 29) has aggressively entered the North American magazine and catalog papers market, giving a major capacity boost to supercalendered (SC) papers and causing some alarm among producers of lightweight coated (LWC) grades.
The new 350,000-mtpy Port Hawkesbury machine, started up in mid-April and supported by a new thermomechanical pulp plant, is designed to produce the highest-end supercalendered papersSC-A and SC-A+. Traditionally used more in European countries, these grades have already found favor at a few U.S. consumer publishing companies and have the benefit of lighter weights and lower cost compared with LWC grades. However, the technical issues of runnability and printability continue to be debated by both sides.
The C$750-million project has brought new life to the mill and to the Nova Scotia community that surrounds it. Prior to the investment by Stora, there was some concern that the company might pull out, leaving a significant hole in the area's industrial base. But the mill is now a major supplier of newsprint and SC papers, obviously giving Stora (soon to be called Stora-Enso) a stronger presence in the U.S. and Canada (see sidebar "Stora races for the top," page 46).
PROJECT HISTORY. The mill, now known as Stora Port Hawkesbury Ltd., was started up in 1962 to produce bleached sulfite market pulp. In 1971, a newsprint line, including a groundwood pulp mill, was added.The newsprint line currently produces about 190,000 mtpy made from a furnish of groundwood and highyield sulfite pulp. The bleached sulfite market pulp operations were shut down during the construction phase of PM2.
The PM2 project was given the goahead by Stora in December 1995. As Jack Hartery, president and general manager of Stora Port Hawkesbury says, the company saw an opportunity in North America for high-end SC papers and decided to move in that direction.
Anders Backlund, project managerSC project, who has extensive experience with European projects, points out...