After acquiring the cartonboard plant in Kotka from Kotkamills, Mayr-Melnhof plans to expand the site. The company has annouced a rebuild of the saturating kraft paper machine.
MM Kotkamills, part of the Mayr-Melnhof group, will increase capacity at its plant in Kotka, Finland. The company announced it would modernise its PM 1 at the site, which currently can make up to 170,000 tpy of saturating kraft paper. The upgrade will raise the machine’s capacity by 15,000 tpy. MM Kotkamills' saturating kraft paper Absorbex is mainly used for laminates.
German engineering company Bellmer will carry out the rebuild work, which includes a new press section including a shoe press and new pulpers. The pre-dryer section will also be renewed.
Mayr-Melnhof acquired the site from Kotkamills last year and had already announced that it intended to expand it. Besides PM 1, the plant operates one cartonboard machine, which was newly built in 2016 and has a capacity of 400,000 tpy of fresh fibre-based board (FBB) and food service board (FSB). MM Kotkamills said last year its medium-term objective was to raise the sales volume of BM 2, which at the time was around 260,000 tpy, to the machine's full capacity. The plant in Kotka employs 500 people.
