Sappi has announced plans to invest at its facilities in Europe and the US in a bid to increase capacities for packaging and specialty paper.
In the next three years, the firm intends to invest $140m in equipment upgrades and production efficiencies at its mills in Alfeld and Ehingen, in Germany; Lanaken in Belgium; and Maastricht in the Netherlands.
The firm will invest in projects including converting its Maastricht mill to a high-quality solid bleached board (SBB) facility as well as expanding the lightweight packaging and specialty papers capacity at its Alfeld Mill by 10,000 tons per year.
By 2019, the SBB business at the Maastricht processing plant is expected to grow to 150,000 tons per year.
Sappi CEO Steve Binnie said: “In Europe we will undertake a number of projects that will result in a significant increase in our specialty packaging paper capacity and capability as well as support our drive to be the lowest cost producer and best service provider in graphic papers.”
Sappi plans to invest approximately $165m to upgrade PM1 machine at its Somerset Mill in Skowhegan, Maine in North America in order to increase the mill’s overall capacity by almost one million tons per year. Work is scheduled to be completed by 2018.
Sappi Europe CEO Berry Wiersum said: “These projects will enable us to make better use of our assets to drive growth in specialty papers, as well as to reduce by 2020 our coated graphic papers capacity by about 200,000 tons.”
South Africa-based Sappi provides dissolving wood pulp, paper pulp and paper-based solutions. It employs over 13,000 people at manufacturing facilities in seven countries.
