Amid rising energy cost pressures, Italy's pulp, paper and energy manufacturer Burgo group is preparing the grounds for temporary layoffs and production downtime at its mills in Treviso and Tolmezzo run by the group's subsidiary Mosaico.
Negotiations with employee representative at the Tolmezzo mill have been already completed, according to Burgo. The short-time working allowances under Italy's wage guarantee fund scheme (cassa integrazione guadagni) reportedly cover the entire mill staff of 290 people, even though the group does not intend to suspend the entire activities at the site. Thus, only certain "highly energy-intensive activities" such as pulp production would be temporarily idled between 5 September and 2 October, Burgo explained.
The Tolmezzo mill houses two paper machines with a total production capacity of 180,000 tpy. PM 3 produces woodfree uncoated paper for offset printing, office papers and envelopes. PM 1 is geared for the production of machine-glazed (MG) lightweight kraft paper for food packaging and technical applications.
At the Treviso mill paper production activities would be completely suspended between 16 and 25 September affecting 40 people. Here, Burgo's specialty papers subsidiary Mosaico runs one paper machine with a acapacty of 62,000 tpy of Mg kraft and PE (polyethylene) coated paper. The next meeting with employee representatives of the Treviso plant is scheduled for Monday.
"Burgo is continuing to carefully monitor the current situation, moment by moment, and any decisions, regarding the affected departments,will be made over the next few days in light of evolving events," the company stated.
