Bernd Rettig, senior executive vice president for magazine papers, said the group had taken the decision to restructure its operations in order to be able to grow in capacity and retain its long-term competitiveness.

The main elements will involve an improvement in the groups competitiveness in uncoated magazine paper production. A new 400,000-tonne-per-annum super-calendered (SC) PM12 machine will be built at its Kvarnsveden mill in Sweden.

The total cost of the project is 284m, and start-up is scheduled for mid-2005. As part of the plan the mills PM9 machine, which has an annual capacity of 130,000 tonnes of improved newsprint, will be shut down.

PM9 at Stora Ensos Maxau mill in Germany will also be rebuilt in a 106m investment to increase capacity of SC-B paper by 140,000 tonnes to 260,000 tonnes per annum. The rebuild will be completed in the second half of 2004.

Once Kvarnsveden has started production, PM3 at Langerbrugge will be switched from 165,000 tonnes of SC production to SC-B, and the group will divest the Wolfscheck mill in Germany, which produces 150,000 tonnes of SC paper and wallpaper base. Capacity in SC will increase by 195,000 tonnes and SC-B and improved newsprint by 150,000 tonnes.

As part of its office paper investment the Finnish-Swedish producer has approved a 79m project to rebuild its uncoated fine paper (PM3) machine at its Veitsiluoto mill in Finland, which will see a capacity increase of 115,000 tonnes to 290,000 tonnes.

Story by Andy Scott

Picture: Stora Enso - competetive