PIMA's North American Papermaker articles from April 2001

PIMA's North American Papermaker archives from April 2001

KPS Fund now owns Curtis Papers.
April 1, 2001... KPS Special Situations Fund, L.P. put $10 million in equity into Curtis Papers, Inc., the new company it created from the specialty paper and premium papers businesses of Crown Vantage. Curtis Papers includes four mills in the U.S. and two in...

Employees may buy Appleton papers.
April 1, 2001... Arjo Wiggins Appleton plc and the management of its wholly owned subsidiary, Appleton Papers Inc., are exploring an employee stock-sponsored purchase of Appleton Papers. Terms of the proposed sale have not been finalized. Under the plan,...

LaPointe gains control of LP's Samoa pulp mill.
April 1, 2001... LaPointe Partners, a Eureka, Calif., management consulting firm, bought controlling interest in Louisiana-Pacific Corp.'s Samoa, Calif., pulp mill and chip export facility in a $79 million deal. Lapointe, which is headed by Bill New,...

SCA concludes purchase of G-P Tissue.
April 1, 2001... SCA (Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget) is now the fourth-largest U.S. tissue producer, and No. 3 in the U.S. away-from-home tissue market, after completion of the $852 million acquisition of as Georgia-Pacific Tissue LLC. With a 17% share...

Fraser Papers to close West Carrollton, Ohio mill.
April 1, 2001... Nexfor subsidiary Fraser Papers is consolidating its Midwest operations at its Park Falls, Wis., mill and is closing its West Carrollton, Ohio, mill. Nexfor says the moves are part of an extensive series of improvements to eliminate...

Eastern Pulp & Paper gains financial infusion.
April 1, 2001... Eastern Pulp & Paper has obtained new bank financing and has also received a $2 million infusion of new shareholder loans. The paper company is currently in full operation at its two mills in Lincoln and Brewer, Maine. The financing for...

Potlatch leases tissue capacity in Maine.
April 1, 2001... Potlatch revealed that it is leasing part of a tissue converting plant in Benton Harbor, Mich., to supply toweling products to the company's private label customers in the Midwest and the East. It already is a major supplier of private label...

Unicell starts Florida tissue mill construction.
April 1, 2001... Unicell Paper, which is part of South Africa's Sharma Group, has started construction on a $35 million tissue mill in Sanford, Fla. Start-up is slated for next January. The 70 tpd crescent former from Italian builder Recard is planned to...

Badger Paper seeks employee concessions.
April 1, 2001... Badger Paper Mills Inc., Peshtigo, Wis., is asking its union and non-union employees for a number of cost-cutting concessions due a 39% increase in pulp prices, higher gas expenses, plus other rising costs that it could not pass on to...

Greif becomes world industrial packaging.
April 1, 2001... Greif Bros. Corp., Delaware, Ohio, has become the global leader in industrial shipping containers with completion of the $555 million acquisition of the Van Leer Industrial packaging division of Finland's Huhtamaki Van Lee. Greif nearly...

FiberMark buys Rexam's DSI.
April 1, 2001... FiberMark, Inc., Brattleboro, Vt., agreed in early March to acquire Rexam Decorative Specialties International in South Hadley, Mass., for $140 million in cash from Rexam PLC, a global consumer packaging group. DSI is the leading...

Box USA.
April 1, 2001... Box USA, Northbrook, Ill., has acquired the assets of A.I. Halper, an independent boxmaker in Minneapolis that has served the Twin Cities market for more than 80 years. The company recently relocated its plant and updated much of its...

SCA Packaging USA Inc.
April 1, 2001... SCA Packaging USA Inc. completed the $21.50 per share cash acquisition of Tuscarora Inc., New Brighton, Pa. The buyer is an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of SCA Packaging International B.V and Tuscarora becomes an indirect, wholly-owned...

Packtion[TM].
April 1, 2001... Packtion[TM] says that DuPont and Procter & Gamble agreed to invest cash and Intellectual property in support of its role as "a catalyst to provide a standardized platform for technology, information, and data for the packaging industry."...

The Mead Corp.
April 1, 2001... The Mead Corp., Dayton, Ohio, reports that its 2.1 million acres of timberlands in eight states have been independently certified in accordance with the American Forest & Paper Association's Sustainable Forestry Initiative[SM] program. Under...

Weyerhaeuser Recycling.
April 1, 2001... Weyerhaeuser Recycling named All-American Recycling, Columbus, Ga., as vendor of the year for national accounts. Says Reid Bates, general manager for Weyerhaeuser Recycling National Accounts, "All-American Recycling exemplifies the ideal...

Westvaco Brand Security, Inc.
April 1, 2001... Westvaco Brand Security, Inc., a subsidiary of Westvaco Corp., New York, acquired about 10% of the common stock of Nocopi Technologies, Inc., West Conshohocken, Pa. Westvaco Brand Security, a major licensee of Nocopi's anticounterfeiting...

Abitibi-Consolidated selling Port-Alfred mill.
April 1, 2001... Abitibi-Consolidated, Montreal, will sell its Port-Alfred newsprint mill in Quebec as part of a final settlement reached with the Canadian Competition Bureau related to its acquisition of Donohue Inc. last year. Following extensive...

PI buying Crown Packaging plant.
April 1, 2001... Cascades Inc. subsidiary Paperboard Industries International, Kingsey Falls, Que., has agreed to buy Grown Packaging's folding carton plant in Winnipeg, Man. The deal with Crown and its parent corporation, 428959 B.C. Ltd., formerly Crown...

Norampac plans product changes for Crown's Burnaby mill.
April 1, 2001... Norampac Inc. has agreed to buy Crown Packaging's corrugating medium mill in Burnaby. B.C., and eight associated paper recovery plants. The deal that is expected to close in early April is part of Crown's financial reorganization in its...

A-C building deinking Plant at Thorold, Ont.
April 1, 2001... Abitibi-Consolidated plans to build a C$50 million deinking plant at its Thorold newsprint mill in Ontario. When the 18-month project is completed, the 400,000 mtpy Thorold mill will become Canada's largest newsprint mill to produce 100%...

Kruger rebuilding PMs at Trois-Rivieres.
April 1, 2001... Kruger Inc., Montreal, will reduce newsprint production by 12,000 metric tonnes at its Trois-Rivieres, Que., newsprint and coated paper mill over a three-month period in order to make quality improvements. The downtime is required to...

Uniforet extends Port-Cartier shutdown.
April 1, 2001... Uniforet says that production at its Port-Cartier BCTMP pulp mill, which was halted on Feb. 16, will not resume before April 2. "This measure is seen as necessary as the result of a temporary slowing of demand for commercial pulp on the...

Irving completes buy of P&G's Toronto mill.
April 1, 2001... Irving Tissue, St. John, N.B., concluded the purchase of Procter & Gamble's Toronto tissue mill and converting plant. Following an agreed transition period, Irving Tissue will also acquire the "Royale" trademark and brand name. The...

ABB.
April 1, 2001... ABB has opened the virtual doors to its Online Pulp & Paper Store, www.abb.com/ paperstore, where customers can purchase ABB equipment and services. The Pulp & Paper Store currently features ABB Application Suite of open communications...

Andritz-Ahlstrom.
April 1, 2001... Andritz-Ahlstrom received orders fo two new fiberlines-at Willamette Indus tries' Albany, Ore., kraft linerboard mu and an unnamed mill in South Carolina The Albany line, due to start up in th third quarter of next year, replaces ar existing...

BASF.
April 1, 2001... BASF reorganized North American Dispersions and Paper Chemicals business group, including the closure of its Polymin manufacturing plant at the company's Freeport, Texas, site by mid-year. The Polymin plant, which produces ethyleneimine (EI)...

Forestweb Inc.
April 1, 2001... Forestweb Inc. has launched a wood-industry trade magazine, Forestweb Wood Journal, available on its website, http://www.forestweb.com/woodjournal/. Aimed at the wood-processing industry, it contains feature articles, mill profiles,...

GL&V.
April 1, 2001... GL&V won't submit a higher bid to buy the operating assets of N.J. corrugated equipment manufacturer Langston Corp. After being outbid, GL&V will take a $305,000 breakup fee. The New Jersey company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection...

Metso Paper.
April 1, 2001... Metso Paper has introduced ZeTrac, an improved HC ozone bleaching process, that is now in operation at Burgo Ardennes in Belgium. Two other mills that have commissioned the process are Oji Paper Nichinan in Japan and VCP Jacarei in Brazil....

Rader Companies, Inc.
April 1, 2001... Rader Companies, Inc. celebrates 50 years of successful business this year, which it attributes to a pioneering spirit, customer service and a drive for innovation. Founded with the belief that pneumatic conveying could be used to get chips...

Voith Paper.
April 1, 2001... Voith Paper has received two major U.S. orders to convert newsprint machines to online LWC. The technology is part of Voith Paper's new "One Platform Paper Machine Concept" with Janusm[TM] MK 2 calendering. At Bowater's Catawba, S.C.,...

UPM-Kymmene and Norske Skog rumored to be in merger talks.
April 1, 2001... The two big Nordic publication papermakers, Finland's UPM-Kymmene and Norske Skog in Norway, are refusing to comment on rumours that they are in talks on a possible merger. Arguably interesting was the statement from TPM-Kymmene that "the...

AssiDoman sells corrugating to Kappa.
April 1, 2001... AssiDoman has agreed to sell its Corrugated & Containerboard division to Kappa Alpha Holdings, formed by venture capitalists, Cinven and CVC Capital Partners, the interests reported as potential buyers in European Papermaker in January. ...

Another dot.com falls--this time it's PaperX.
April 1, 2001... "Despite all the best efforts by the team at PaperX, it has not been possible to raise second-round financing," said Lars-Ake Helgesson, CEO of the European paper-industry transaction website. PaperX has operated for 18 months. "Stagnant...

Summa invests sum.
April 1, 2001... Stora Enso is to rebuild newsprint PM 3 and the thermomechanical pulp (TMP) plant at its Summa mill in Finland. The investment will come to about EUR 20 million ($18 million). On the paper machine, the aim is to improve quality, as well as...

Malaysians on the move.
April 1, 2001... Muda Holdings, Pascorp Paper Industries and Genting Sanyen Industrial Paper have upgraded their PMs to increase capacity by more than 200,000 tpy in Malaysia. Muda has completed its upgrade, increasing capacity by 60% from 143,000 tpy to...

Propapier is born.
April 1, 2001... Corrugated-board producer Prowell is the proud parent of a new papermaker. The company's subsidiary, Propapier, has now entered the trial phase on its first-ever paper machine, a 275,000-tpy Valmet testliner and fluting PM, at its greenfield...

FEW NEW IN QUEUE.
April 1, 2001... One of the reasons behind Prowell's entry into the world of papermaking was its strategic corporate objective of "guaranteeing long-term, reliable delivery capability." Europe has not seen many new corrugating materials machines start up in...

United moves mill to Malaysia.
April 1, 2001... United Pulp and Paper (UPP) has completed its mill relocation from Singapore to the greenfield site near Port Klang, 100 km west of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. The mill is due to be fully functional in April 2001, with PM 1 already up and...

Baibang gets bigger.
April 1, 2001... Vietnam's largest paper mill, Baibang (aka Bapco) is set to get bigger, with its new expansion project underway. Located north of Hanoi, Baibang's already-approved Phase 1 aims to upgrade existing equipment and expand production to increase...

Country makes Kontum leap.
April 1, 2001... Vietnam is investing $244 million to build Vietnam's biggest pulp mill, a l30,000-tpy plant at Kontum in central Vietnam. The project has just been given the green light by the government and contractual bidding is expected to begin in the...

Blue Eagle has landed.
April 1, 2001... Yunnan Hongta Blue Eagle is currently running in a complete cigarette-paper machine, installed by Allimand in a contract worth FF 105 million (US$14.6 million). The investment has tripled capacity at Blue Eagle, a leading Chinese cigarette...

Tamilnadu adds tonnes.
April 1, 2001... The state-owned Tamilnadu Newsprint Ltd. (TNPL) has lined up a Rupees 400-million ($9 million) capacity-addition plan, which would make it one of the largest manufacturers of quality paper and newsprint in India. The company said it had...

Asia Pulp & Paper makes one debt payment, then suspends all others.
April 1, 2001... While Asia Pulp and Paper (APP)'s subsidiary, Tjiwi Kimia, made the final deadline for paying the $13.25 million interest on its 2001 bonds, APP announced March 12 that it was suspending interest and principal payments on its outstanding debt...

SELL, SELL, SELL!
April 1, 2001... Meanwhile, Tee added that: "APP plans to accelerate its non-core asset divestiture program and has retained JP Morgan to advise it with respect to certain of these divestments." One example of such divestments takes the form of Ballarpur...

Make a commitment to "go global".
April 1, 2001... The buzzword these days at PIMA is globalization! How fitting, then, that the theme of PIMA's 82nd Annual International Management Conference (June 27-29, 2001 in Baltimore, Maryland) is "2001 Ways to Win in a Global League." On page 29 of...

Playing to win in a global league.
April 1, 2001... Globalization is the watchword for today's paper industry, and it is being driven by several trends--including trans-regional mergers and the rapid growth of e-commerce. To succeed in this new world, paper companies will have to learn a whole...

Machine clothing: How will new alliances change the industry?
April 1, 2001... With top paper machinery suppliers now owning or aligning with major clothing manufacturers, the structure of the machine clothing industry is evolving. This and new service strategies are changing the way the industry operates. The...

The value proposition of applications providers in the MES/enterprise/supply chain areas.
April 1, 2001... The dot.com boom is going bust and the anticipated consolidation or collapse of Internet companies continues. Meanwhile, the "mind share" of most manufacturing and distribution companies has returned to how to gain efficiencies across their...

PPRC seeks a balance in Washington, D.C.
April 1, 2001... Ten years ago, mills in the Pacific Northwest were shutting down and jobs were disappearing at an alarming rate. Paperworkers realized that lobs nationwide were at risk. They formed a network called the Pulp and Paperworker's Resource Council...

Who will innovate for the paper industry?
April 1, 2001... You know your company wants it. You know the industry needs it. But do you know how to foster the kind of innovation that we must have to survive? Innovation is pretty mysterious. You need it even if you think you don't. It's not clear...

PEOPLE.
April 1, 2001... PULP & PAPER COMPANIES Jim Gosnell has been named facilities manager at Boise Cascade, St. Helens, Ore., Vancouver operations. Bowater Inc., Greenville, S.C., has made the following promotions: James H. Dorton to vice president,...

Fade to black.
April 1, 2001... The steady drumbeat of mill closings and machine shut downs in North America continues. One after another, mills are shutting down their machines, dismissing their staffs, and closing their doors. Cities and towns with long histories in the...

Deferiet idles N.Y. mill, will file Chapter 11.
April 1, 2001... Deferiet Paper Co. shut down its mill in Deferiet, N.Y., in late March, and will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as it seeks refinancing or a new buyer. The 1896-built mill, bought in June 1999 for $44 million by forms...

Norske Skog Canada in talks to buy Pacifica Papers.
April 1, 2001... Norske Skog Canada began negotiations in late March for the possible acquisition of Pacifica Papers Inc., a C$858 million British Columbia groundwood publication paper producer. Norske Canada, which is 50.8%-owned by the world's...

Miami recycler buys Edwards Paper.
April 1, 2001... American Paper Recycling in Miami has acquired the former Edwards Paper tissue mill in Miami through a Bankruptcy Court auction. Edwards had entered Chapter 11 protection in May of last year and shut down its tissue machine in August. ...

Leading paper institutes pledge cooperation.
April 1, 2001... The Institute of Paper Science and Technology (IPST) in Atlanta and Paprican, the Pulp and Paper Research Institute of Canada in Pointe-Claire, Que., the North American industry's two principal research institutes, have signed an agreement to...

EquipNet Direct.
April 1, 2001... Leading investment recovery firm EquipNet Direct (www.EquipNetDirect.com) topped the S100 million mark in industrial equipment listings on MarketPlace, the company's external exchange engine. MarketPlace has grown rapidly from its launch in...

Lorentzen & Wettre USA.
April 1, 2001... Lorentzen & Wettre USA acquired Robertson Calibration Services, Inc. of Matthews, S.C. The company has an eight-year history of providing preventative maintenance, calibration services and consultative services to paper mills, boxplants,...