Italian manufacturer of hygiene papers Sofidel has bought a tissue mill in Duluth, Minnesota, from ST Paper.
The mill has 80 employees and can produce up to 65.000 tpy of tissue paper.
"This is an important acquisition, allowing us to immediately meet the growing demand, which saw a significant upturn in 2023. We are acquiring a technologically advanced plant that further improves our geographic coverage and creates the conditions to strengthen and sustain growth in our main market,” said Luigi Lazzareschi, CEO of Sofidel.
ST Paper acquired the Duluth mill – then a production site for printing and packaging paper – from Verso in 2021 and announced plans to convert the site to tissue production. A new Andritz machine was commissioned at the site a year ago. The machine was "highly efficient and fully operational," Sofidel stated.
The new investment comes a few months after Sofidel made an organic growth investment to expand its integrated plant in Circleville, Ohio. The project, which has already been launched, involves the construction of a new building to house a machine with a production capacity of 70,000 tpy. It is scheduled to become operational in the third quarter of 2025.
The Circleville mill was inaugurated in 2018. Built at a cost of $400m, the mill already has two tissue machines. Sofidel says that commissioning of the third TM in Circleville will increase the total capacity at the site above 200,000 tpy, making the mill Sofidel’s most important production site worldwide.
