Only a few days after Braxcel announced its plans to build a new pulp mill in Brazil, paper and board manufacturer Klabin Papel e Celulose met with the governor of the federal state of Paraná to put its new pulp mill in concrete terms.
Brazilian paper and board manufacturer Klabin is planning a new pulp mill for softwood and hardwood pulp in the federal state of Paraná. The company had revealed this plan back in December already, but at the time no details were given. Now, the government of Paraná announced that it has come to an agreement with the company that is planning an investment of BRL6.8bn.
Klabin intends to build a pulp mill with an annual capacity of 1.5 million t of hardwood and softwood pulp from eucalyptus and pine to satisfy the company's own demand. As announced back in December, Klabin intends to construct “the world’s most competitive pulp mill” in order to reduce exposure to market volatility.
As regards fluff pulp, Klabin furthermore believes there is demand in the Brazilian market that it would like to tap. According to the company’s analyses, there is a lack in softwood capacity not just in Brazil but worldwide because production costs in the northern hemisphere are high and result in many capacity closures or machine rebuilds to produce other pulp grades. However, Klabin believes that the high pinewood yields that can be achieved in Brazil will bring the country a competitive advantage also in this segment.
According to the Paraná government, the production at the pulp mill, which is still under study, is scheduled to commence at the end of 2014.
At the beginning of November, Klabin disclosed that after the takeover of Vale do Corisco it now owns a total of 243,000 hectares of plantations of which 110,000 hectares (60% pine and 40% eucalyptus wood), are to be used for new investment projects. Klabin holds a stake of 51% in Vale do Corisco while the remaining 49% are owned by Arauco.
