PM4 has an annual capacity of 400,000 tonnes and uses 100% recovered paper, which will be collected from Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, France and Germany.

Stora Enso senior executive vice president publication paper Bernd Rettig said the mill was perfectly located to take advantage of the urban forest of recoverable paper, particularly in the UK and France. The plant has excellent road, rail and sea links, and 80m people live within 300km.

Our goal is to have streamlined machines that produce just one product, they are much more competitive, said Rettig.

The machine can produce a tonne of newsprint for every one-and-a-half man hours worked, compared to an average of between two and three man hours.

Rettig said Storas strategy of replacing less competitive, older machines with state-of-the-art ones would not add capacity to the market.

As part of its restructuring programme, Stora Enso is closing Langerbrugges PM2, which has a capacity of 120,000 tonnes, and is switching its PM3 newsprint machine (165,000 tonnes) to SC grades. The company is also closing PM1 (110,000 tonnes) at its Summa plant in Finland.

The 345m (EUR500m) investment at Langerbrugge is Stora Ensos largest to date and has added 70 jobs, bringing the mills workforce to 450.

Story by John Davies