PIMA's North American Papermaker articles from January 2001

PIMA's North American Papermaker archives from January 2001

New game, old rules.
January 1, 2001... In a management training session at PIMA a few years ago, we were introduced to "The Beer Game." Our group was divided into teams, each consisting of a retailer, distributor, wholesaler and brewer. In each round the retailer passed his orders...

Stora Enso subsidiary Corenso expanding into North America.
January 1, 2001... Stora Enso's subsidiary Corenso United Oy Ltd has purchased a 20% shareholding in Crown Fibre Tube, Inc., a Canadian core and tube manufacturer. Crown Fibre has a mill near Halifax in Nova Scotia and annual sales of about EUR 3 million. ...

EPA awards Blue Ridge for outstanding environmental performance.
January 1, 2001... Blue Ridge Paper Products Inc. has been recognized by the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Environmental Performance Track program. "Businesses that participate in this program are going beyond compliance to better...

NLRB faults Cellu Tissue with bad faith bargaining.
January 1, 2001... The Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union (PACE) has prevailed in a case against Cellu Tissue Corp. which they had brought before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The law jugde of the NLRB found...

With completion of Fort James buy, G-P turns to sale of G-P Tissue.
January 1, 2001... Georgia-Pacific Corp., Atlanta, has become the leading global producer of tissue products following the Nov. 27 acquisition of Fort James Corp. and immediately began operating and integrating the Deerfield, Ill., company under the...

Bowater converting 420,000 tons of newsprint to coated.
January 1, 2001... Bowater Inc. directors approved a comprehensive plan to rebuild its remaining Catawba, S.C., newsprint machine to production of No. 5 coated ground-wood as part of a total conversion of 420,000 tons of newsprint to coated groundwood over the...

U.S. production capacity is barely growing.
January 1, 2001... The current slow pace of U.S. paper and paperboard capacity expansion is expected to continue for at least another next three years, and such major industry sectors as newsprint and uncoated freesheet could actually shrink in size. ...

G-P shutting Kalamazoo mill, PM in Wisconsin.
January 1, 2001... Georgia-Pacific Corp., Atlanta, permanently closed its printing and writing paper mill in Kalamazoo, Mich., last month and said an already idled paper machine at its Nekoosa, Wis., operations would also be shut. Some 285 employees are...

Plainwell files for bankruptcy.
January 1, 2001... Plainwell Inc. filed a voluntary Chapter 11 petition for reorganization and bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. The Minneapolis-headquartered specialty paper and tissue manufacturer immediately sought...

Westvaco unveils global packaging solutions business.
January 1, 2001... Westvaco Corp., New York, unveiled Paxonix, a packaging solutions business that is aimed at helping consumer product companies develop packaging solutions, shorten package-development cycles and increase the speed of product launches and...

LP selling California pulp mill for $79 million.
January 1, 2001... Louisiana-Pacific Corp., Portland, Ore., reached preliminary agreement with LaPointe Partners, Inc. to sell its Samoa, Calif., pulp mill and chip export facility for $79 million in cash and stock. LaPointe Partners is a management,...

IP selling Arizona Chemical.
January 1, 2001... International Paper, Purchase, N.Y., has decided to sell Arizona Chemical, its leading pine chemical business based in Jacksonville, Fla. The decision related to IP's ongoing divestures of more than $3 billion of assets had been expected as...

World paper consumption rising.
January 1, 2001... Paper consumption worldwide continues to increase, even as Internet-based email and e-commerce also are growing, reports PaperCom Alliance International from a recent study. In addition to increased usage due to desktop printing of...

Abitibi-Consolidated reconfirms support of management.
January 1, 2001... Following meetings in November to smooth relations with Quebecor Inc., its largest stockholder and biggest critic, a special directors committee of Abitibi-Consolidated Inc., Montreal, reiterated its belief that Quebecor's allegations against...

Weyerhaeuser welcomes progress on treaty talks.
January 1, 2001... Weyerhaeuser Co. Ltd. says it views an exchange of offers between governments and the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council First Nations as a positive step in the treaty-making process. Weyerhaeuser supports the treaty process, and according to...

Baltic Pulp scheme inaugurated.
January 1, 2001... Despite the apparent progress of the 550,000-tpy Stendal pulp mill project in eastern Germany (see related article), the scheme to build a 600,000-tpy kraft pulp mill at Jekabpils, some 200 kilometers east of Riga in Latvia, seems to be...

Metsa/Modo Paper form NMF.
January 1, 2001... The merged papermakers, Metsa-Serla and Modo Paper, are shaping up their New Merchanting Force, formed from Forest House and Modo Paper Trade to make Europe's third-largest merchant. Turnover in 1999 was EUR 1.5 billion ($1.3 billion). ...

Acid rain diminishing in eastern U.S.
January 1, 2001... The United States and Canada have gone beyond what the law requires in successfully reducing emissions of the major contributors to acid rain, sulfur dioxide ([SO.sub.2]) and nitrogen oxides (NOx), according to a new joint study on...

Mercer sells off Hainsberg mill; Stendal progresses.
January 1, 2001... Swiss-based Mercer International has sold its Hainsberg Recycled Printing Paper mill, near Dresden in eastern Germany, and reports that it expects to be ready to obtain funding for its plan to drive ahead the long-delayed Stendal pulp mill...

SCA's Laakirchen mill orders new PM 11.
January 1, 2001... The Laakirchen mill in Austria, a magazine paper subsidiary of Sweden's SCA, has ordered the new 240,000-tpy supercalendered (SC) paper machine to replace the mill's existing 90,000-tpy PM 3. Voith Paper will supply the new PM 11, which will...

Ardennes mill gets 80,000 tpy more pulp.
January 1, 2001... Burgo Ardennes, the former Cellulose des Ardennes mill in southeastern Belgium now run by Italy's Burgo group, is to increase the capacity of its existing fiber line from 280,000 tpy to 360,000 tpy. The project is scheduled for completion...

Stora Enso, Metsaliitto and UPM-Kymmene fined in ruling.
January 1, 2001... Finland's Competition Council has ruled that Stora Enso, UPM-Kymmene and Metsaliitto breached regulations of the country's Act on Competition Restrictions and has fined each of the companies FIM 10 million ($1.5 million). The case was based...

AssiDoman to pull out of corrugating.
January 1, 2001... AssiDoman is looking to pull out of yet another business and this time it is arguably its headline sector--corrugating materials and corrugated packaging. The company is currently spinning off its pulp mills within the new Billerud and...

Tronchetti starts up new tissue PM.
January 1, 2001... Europaper, part of the Industrie Cartarie Trochetti group, has started up a complete new 90-tpd crescent former tissue machine at its mill in Monzone, up the coast from Pisa in northwestern Italy. The 2.7-m trim, 1500-m/ mm machine, PM3, as...

Reno De Medici rebuilds BM3.
January 1, 2001... Valmet has received the order from Italian board maker Reno de Medici, for an extensive rebuild of its BM3 board machine at the company's Villa Santa Lucia Mill in Frosinone, Italy. The rebuild will allow the board machine to produce White...

VCP ordering expansion.
January 1, 2001... Votorantim Celulose e Papel (VCP) has begun ordering the equipment necessary for the 400,000 tpy eucalyptus pulp expansion at its Jacarei mill. The $550 million investment will include a complete pulp drying line from Valmet Chemical Pulping...

Klabin expands at Riocell.
January 1, 2001... Industrias Klabin de Papel e Celulose plans to invest $200 million in 2001 to boost capacity at Riocell's plant in Guaiba. This investment should increase Riocell's pulp capacity to 400,000 tpy, 30,000 tpy more than the previously-projected...

SCA invests in Familia.
January 1, 2001... Productos Familia del Ecuador, an associate company of Sweden's SCA, is importing a second-hand paper machine from the Netherlands. The 2.45m trim PM will be rebuilt from a fourdrinier configuration into a 50 tpd crescent former tissue...

SPM installs new tissue PM.
January 1, 2001... Saudi Paper Manufacturing has started building the new tissue PM at its Dammam mill in Saudi Arabia. The company aims to complete the installation of the 110 tpd Recard machine in five months, with commercial production planned for June 2001....

K-C buys remainder of Taiwan Scott Paper.
January 1, 2001... Kimberly-Clark (K-C) is buying the remaining 33.3% interest in Taiwan Scott Paper Corporation that it didn't already own from its co-owner, Goldsun Development & Construction. The tmnsaction, valued at approximately $40 million, was expected...

Inti Indorayon Utama back on line.
January 1, 2001... Toba Pulp Lestari, formerly APRIL's PT Inti Indorayon Utama, has received $4 million from foreign investors to restart it after being idle since 1998. Operations at the company in Porsea, North Sumatra, had been suspended over disputes with...

Sinar Mas to build big pulp plant in china.
January 1, 2001... Indonesia's Sinar Mas Group recently signed an agreement with the government of Zhenjiang City in China to build a 400,000 tpy semi-chemical pulp plant in Zhenjiang, a city in East China's Jiangsu Province, and to set up a 3.1 hectare poplar...

Push toward single e-standard gains support.
January 1, 2001... Major companies of the European and American paper industries say they are well under way in development of a single, unified, international, XML-based e-business standard designed to improve the efficiency and accuracy of the paper supply...

New Toyo gets board and tissue plants.
January 1, 2001... Singapore-based New Toyo International inaugurated its 20,000 tpy tissue mill in Vietnam in mid-November, when outgoing U.S. President Bill Clinton made an historic visit to the country. New Toyo invested $33.4 million in two new tissue...

Paperloop.com.
January 1, 2001... Paperloop.com says it will use Question.com's collaboration platform to power paperloop.com's new Solutions Advisor(sm), an interactive business network environment designed to connect the knowledge and resources of industry participants...

Logical Design Solutions.
January 1, 2001... Logical Design Solutions, Morristown, N.J., has completed its design and implementation of a production portal application for the business-to-business Web site of xpedx, located at http://xpedx.com. International Paper-owned xpedx is a $7.5...

Walker Interactive Systems.
January 1, 2001... Walker Interactive Systems, San Francisco, received an investment from Canfor Corp., Vancouver, B.C., in Walker's Deep e-business solutions platform to assist in their transformation to an e-business company. Canfor came to Walker after...

ForestExpress.
January 1, 2001... ForestExpress formed a strategic partnership with webMethods, Fairfax, Va., for integrating ForestExpress' customers, suppliers and partners into online B2B trading networks, directly connecting the inventories and back-end systems to improve...

Focus on the Customer and Win.
January 1, 2001... Now that the yearend holidays are behind us, we can refocus our energies in the New Year employing winning strategies to achieve greater personal and professional success. Placing customer satisfaction at the top of the list, although...

It's a jungle out there: Survival tips for the rest of your career.
January 1, 2001... In the first two installments of this column (Oct. '00, pg. 25, Dec. '00, pg. 26) we covered six of the ten survival tips for the new jungle of corporate America. This month the last four tips will help guide you through the rest of your...

Unions: Are they back in the game?
January 1, 2001... Although union membership in the U.S. has been declining since the 1950s, union officials have recently made progress in bolstering their membership numbers. In fact, in 1999 union membership did not decline for the first time in more than 20...

Is the environment headed downstream?
January 1, 2001... How is the international community dealing with issues of pollution and environmental protection? One solution is to set higher environmental standards for the process industries. Pulp and paper mills around the globe have been working to...

Blue Ridge: Sometimes, different is good.
January 1, 2001... Customer focus, employee involvement, open communication-pretty standard goals for a modern paper company bent on success. But the employee/owners of Blue Ridge Paper Products want to take it one step further. "We would love to have our...

PM optimization: something old, something new.
January 1, 2001... With few new paper machines being built in North America, the focus for many paper companies has turned to optimizing existing machines. Paper machines that are kept up to date on a regular basis have a good chance of competing effectively...

Changes in exchanges & connectivity standards.
January 1, 2001... The Internet revolution and the new economy have become part of main stream corporate life. Few can even remember life before e-mail and if your company doesn't have a website the "Are they still in business?" question gets immediately asked....

UNIQUE BARRIER COATING FEATURED.
January 1, 2001... TyKote WTR-GL from Reichhold is a water-based latex barrier coating for paperboard packaging. It is designed for containerboard applications requiring moisture vapor resistance, plus oil and grease holdout. Combining features such as cold set...

OPTICONCEPT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE.
January 1, 2001... Valmet's OptiConcept papermaking process increases quality and speed, optimizes productivity and improves service accessibility by using the world's most advanced papermaking technology. OptiConcept machinery for the length of the papermaking...

GP RESINS OFFER REAL BENEFITS.
January 1, 2001... This innovative wet strength resin-Amres[R] 25-HP--helps papermakers obtain specified wet strength performance while using 15-25% less resin; or boost performance by using Amres 25-HP at current resin use levels. Other benefits include...

LOX-8 IS WATERPROOF AND TOUGH.
January 1, 2001... Fluoramics' Lox-8 Paste Thread Sealant is safe with oxygen, chlorine, powerful oxidizers, aggressive chemicals and gases. Lox-8 is made especially for use in wet applications, with a pressure range well over 10,000 psi, and is ideal where...

Extreme performance PUD expands sizing potential.
January 1, 2001... Whether it's a disposable cup for steaming coffee or a sleek luxury car brochure hot of the press, high performance polyurethane dispersion (PUD) is expanding the role of sizing across a wide range of applications. Advanced PUD can handle hot...

PEOPLE.
January 1, 2001... PAPER COMPANIES Alabama River Pulp and Alabama Pine Pulp, Claiborne, Ala., have announced the following promotions: Russell Kendrick has been promoted to vice president-CFO. Greg Martin has been named vice president-mill manager. Jeff...

KNIFE HOLDER EXTENDS BLADE LIFE.
January 1, 2001... Dienes Corp. has introduced an air-cushioned bottom knife holder that lengthens blade life. Instead of controlling the blade head with a spring mechanism, the side-load head pneumatically controls contact between top and bottom knives. The...

MOUNTAIN SYSTEMS ENHANCES INTELLUTION HISTORIAN.
January 1, 2001... Mountain Systems has announced the availability of a new Microsoft Excel-based product that leverages iFix[TM] from Intellution[R] Inc. The add-in product is a data extraction tool that allows for the presentation of Intellution's Advanced...

CROSS-DIRECTION SPACING WEIGHT PROFILERS.
January 1, 2001... ABB has introduced dilution, coat weight and slice profilers with the smallest spacing available (50 mm). The new profilers minimize CD variability of sheet basis weight and coat weight. The new design is compatible with common interface and...

VOITH DYNASTEP II[TM] WEIGHT PROFILING SYSTEM.
January 1, 2001... Voith Paper Automation has introduced a new basis weight profiling system for easy installation into headboxes. The DynaStep II can function as a standalone system with windowing of operator displays into any Microsoft or UNIX-based operator...

ID-2[TM] PRESSURE SCREENS FOR FINE SCREENING SYSTEMS.
January 1, 2001... Thermo Black Clawson has recently introduced ID-2 cylinder and rotor. Developed jointly by Thermo Black Clawson and E. & M. Lamort, the ID-2 provides improved debris removal, increased screening capacity, higher long-fiber yield and greater...

NELES BALL VALVES FRIENDLY TO PULP AND PAPER APPLICATIONS.
January 1, 2001... The M2 modular ball valve (MBV) has been added to Neles' ANSI product line. It offers an economical and reliable valve that has been designed specifically for pulp and paper processes. The new modular ball valve has an improved internal...

WET-END STARCHES INCREASE DRAINAGE.
January 1, 2001... Nacan Products Limited has introduced OptiPLUS [TM], a series of new, specialty wet-end starches that can increase drainage by 25%. The products allow for paper machine speed increases of approximately 5%, as well as improve sheet formation...

LEAKTRAC PROVIDES FAST, ACCURATE INFO.
January 1, 2001... A new patented online system for early detection of leaks in black liquor recovery boilers is available from Hercules. LeakTrac indication system combines the sensitivity of a chemical mass balance with the simplicity of a water mass balance....

EXCALIBER CUTS TITANIUM DIOXIDE.
January 1, 2001... Excaliber[R] calcined kaolin-based pigment from Englehard Corporation has such a high opacity that it allows for cost cutting in titanium dioxide and mineral loadings. The pigment can reduce titanium dioxide usage up to 25% and total mineral...

REPLACE SCREENS WITHOUT STOPPING PRODUCTION.
January 1, 2001... Stainless Valve Co. has introduced Big Screen [TM], a method to replace screens in process piping applications without stopping production. Big Screen features two screens mounted on a sliding stainless steel blade. At the touch of a button,...

SMOOTH, SAFE PAPER ROLL INVERTER.
January 1, 2001... Pentalift Equipment Corp. has designed a new paper roll inverter for use in paper mills. It is engineered to safely rotate a 60,000 lb-paper roll 90 degrees from a horizontal to a vertical position. The inverter has dual direction and full...