Mill manager at Holmens Hallsta mill in Sweden, Lars Erik Roos said: "The results were good in comparison to what we have seen of the competition."

He said that the gravure product, which was manufactured on a soft calender, has a smooth surface, while retaining bulk and print gloss.

The installation of the 124m PM11 started in January and it is the first and largest machine in the world to produce machine finished (MF) magazine paper.

"We are extremely happy with the results so far, given that this is a new manufacturing production platform," said Per Sjren production manager for PM11.

Sjren said the time taken from the removal of the sites old PM11 to the production of paper on the new machine took just 68 days and involved 900 people.

The new PM11 is on schedule to reach production capacity of 330,000 tonnes in the next two months, but has greater capacity.

MF magazine paper is suitable for the production of advertising materials, special interest publications and newspaper inserts. Holmen has forecast that the MF market has a 5-7% annual growth rate.

The Hallsta paper mill has four paper machines in total, which produce standard newsprint, SC paper and book paper.

Story by Andy Scott