Speaking exclusively to PrintWeek, Arvato board member Stephan Krauss said runs "could be as low as 200,000 depending upon pagination".

"The crucial thing is how well you use the advantage of gravure, which is the width. The better you can use that, the lower the run," he added.

"Quite a lot of jobs currently printed offset are being printed that way because of the lack of gravure capacity. Gravure has had a bad image, of being low-end in terms of quality. The truth is gravure is at least as good as offset. It is high-end," Krauss stated.

"We can, if we want to, easily compete with offset in terms of time for inputting data and getting ready to print. As always it depends upon customer demands."

While one web printer described the news as "bloody depressing", others are determined to take the fight to gravure. "The economics aren't as cut and dried as the gravure boys would have you think," noted Wyndeham chief executive Paul Utting. "We can give them a run for their money on a 500,000 run."

Pindar chairman Andrew Pindar said: "If I'm brutal about it then yes, there are certain products that could or should be gravure. However, for us there's a bigger picture and a value proposition that extends beyond putting the most ink on the lightest bit of paper."

Last October St Ives predicted torrid times in long-run web, and has since announced plans to close its Caerphilly factory. "My opinion on the impact of the gravure factories is no different to six months ago. It's going to affect the long-run end of the web offset market and that will cascade down," said managing director Brian Edwards this week.

Plans for Liverpool, described as "right on schedule", continue to take shape. Arvato has opted for Hell Gravure Systems' K6 cylinder engravers to feed the giant 4.32m-wide presses that are bound for the factory.

The plant will begin printing with its first press, a 2.75m-wide model, this time next year.

It has also emerged that the News International work currently printed at Polestar will start moving to Arvato in April 2007, earlier than initially expected.

Story by Jo Francis