PIMA's North American Papermaker articles from June 2001

PIMA's North American Papermaker archives from June 2001

Silver lining?
June 1, 2001... Alan Rooks After reading some recent reports about the U.S. paper industry, I thought of A Day in the Life, a great Beatles song. "I read the news today, oh boy," goes the first line of the song. Oh boy is right. The U.S. paper industry...

Weyerhaeuser raises Willamette offer to $50/share.
June 1, 2001... In May, Weyerhaeuser Co. increased its hostile cash tender offer for Willamette Industries by $2 to $50 per share, amounting to about $5.5 billion. At the same time, Steven R. Rogel, chairman, president and CEO of Weyerhaeuser, told...

American Tissue moving on new acquisitions.
June 1, 2001... American Tissue Inc., Hauppauge, N.Y, has reached agreement to buy the deinked pulp mill assets of bankrupt Ponderosa Fibres of America, and the company is working on a deal in Kalamazoo, Mich., that involves the closed paper mills of...

Glatfelter selling tobacco papers business.
June 1, 2001... As part of its plan to exit the tobacco papers business, P.H. Glatfelter Co., York, Pa., has a definitive agreement to sell its Ecusta Division to RFS (US) Inc., a subsidiary of privately held Purico (IOM) Ltd., for $39 million in cash, plus...

Domtar acquiring four G-P white paper mills.
June 1, 2001... Domtar Inc., Montreal, is making a major strategic move in the printing/office white paper business by agreeing to buy the Ashdown, Ark.; Nekoosa and Port Edwards, Wis., and Woodland, Maine, pulp and paper mills from Georgia-Pacific Corp.,...

Sappi exits uncoated business, closing Mobile Mill.
June 1, 2001... Sappi Fine Paper North America, Boston, is getting out of the uncoated paper business and will close its 300,000-ton Mobile, Ala., mill, subject to the completion of a final review. The mill employs 480 people. The closure would enable the...

Eastern looks to the future.
June 1, 2001... Eastern Pulp & Paper's chairman/owner told the governor of Maine and others in April that he is confident the company will successfully emerge from Chapter 11 protection, even during the financial tough times facing the paper industry. "By...

APC buying Lyons Falls Pulp & Paper.
June 1, 2001... APC Paper Co., Claremont, N.H., has a letter of intent to buy the Lyons Falls Pulp & Paper mill in upstate New York for an undisclosed amount. The 106-year old mill has been closed since January due to changing market conditions for its paper...

Deferiet mill going to auction.
June 1, 2001... Deferiet Paper Co.'s bankrupt and idled mill near Watertown in upstate New York is being auctioned off. Deferiet's bankers hired Daley-Hodkin, a Melville, N.Y, firm to solicit bids for the 104-yearold mill that was closed in late March...

American Tissue buying Ponderosa Fibres assets.
June 1, 2001... An affiliate of American Tissue Inc. has reached a definitive agreement to purchase the deinked pulp mills of Ponderosa Fibres of America in Memphis, Tenn., Oshkosh, Wis., and Augusta, Ga. The deal is subject to bankruptcy court approval. ...

IP Shuts Moss Point SBS Mill.
June 1, 2001... International Paper's bleached board mill in Moss Point, Miss., will close indefinitely by the end of the second quarter due to high costs and the need to cut production to meet slower orders. The high-cost, 99-year-old mill had been shut...

Great Northern gains Maine loan OK.
June 1, 2001... Great Northern Paper Co. received approval from the Finance Authority of Maine for a $25 million loan to help finance the company's $140 million modernization project at its mills in Millinocket and East Millinocket. Great Northern's...

Chesapeake sells display business.
June 1, 2001... CorrFlex Graphics, LLC, Statesville, N.C., a leading provider of corrugated packaging and displays in the East, will acquire the domestic assets of subsidiary Chesapeake Display and Packaging Co., Richmond, Va. The transaction for the U.S....

FiberMark completes acquisition of DSI.
June 1, 2001... FiberMark has completed the $140 million purchase of Rexam Decorative Specialties International (DSI), the leading worldwide producer of latex-saturated decorative materials for specialty packaging, book production and publishing, printing...

Georgia-Pacific joins Petty Enterprises team for Nascar 2001 Winston Cup season.
June 1, 2001... If you're a race fan, you'll want to keep an eye out for the Georgia-Pacific #44 Dodge Intrepid R/T during the 2001 NASCAR Winston Cup Season. Driven by University of Georgia graduate Buckshot Jones, #44 features a sponsorship logo from...

Boise Cascade.
June 1, 2001... Boise Cascade, Boise, Idaho, has established a new industry safety record at its Jackson, Alabama, mill. Mill employees recorded 7.43 million safe work hours on April 4,2001, breaking the previous record set in 1979. Now they have broken the...

International Paper.
June 1, 2001... International Paper, Purchase, N.Y, agreed to sell its Chocolate Bayou Water Co. subsidiary near Houston to the North Harris County Regional Water Authority in Southeast Texas for approximately $100 million, subject to certain adjustments at...

Gaylord Container Corp.
June 1, 2001... Gaylord Container Corp., Deerfield, Ill., reached an agreement in principle to settle all litigation resulting from an accidental rail tank car explosion in Bogalusa, La., in October 1995 that resulted in injuries and shut down the company's...

Manistique Papers, Inc.
June 1, 2001... Manistique Papers, Inc., Manistique, Mich., a subsidiary of Kruger Inc., has recently been granted its ISO-14001 Certification, making the company one of 12 paper mills in North America to receive this certification. Certified facilities have...

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
June 1, 2001... The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome, Italy, has recently released a compilation journals based on reports from the Forestry Program called Unasylva. The journal addresses issues regarding the use of trees,...

Riverwood International Corp.
June 1, 2001... Atlanta, Georgia-based Riverwood International Corp. has commercialized KrafKote[R] containerboard, a new clay-coated product for use in post print packaging applications. The product has completed successful introduction in the produce...

Stora Enso North America.
June 1, 2001... Stora Enso North America, Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., closed a coated specialty machine at its Stevens Point, Wis., mill indefinitely due to poor market conditions. The 80-year-old machine was shutdown during a scheduled maintenance downtime in...

Engineers and Scientists of Cincinnati.
June 1, 2001... Past PIMA trustee and treasurer John H. Kuhn has been named the 2001 Distinguished Engineer and presented with the Herman Schneider Award by the Engineers and Scientists of Cincinnati at its 66th Annual Awards Banquet. The organization gives...

Wayagamack is back.
June 1, 2001... Kruger Inc., Montreal, and the Province of Quebec have formed a partnership company to relaunch the Wayagamack newsprint mill in Trois-Rivieres as a LWC mill. Kruger Wayagamack Inc., which is 51% owned by Kruger and 49% by SGF Rexfor--an...

Uniforet files for bankruptcy.
June 1, 2001... Uniforet Inc. has filed for bankruptcy court protection after it ran out of money and could not pay a $3.4 million interest payment. The Montreal company says it will continue operations, pay suppliers and satisfy customer orders while the...

Pacifica stockholder suit rejected.
June 1, 2001... The Supreme Court of British Columbia has rejected all of the efforts of New York fund manager Cerberus Capital Management to prevent Pacifica Papers from mailing a proxy circular for the Pacifica shareholders' meeting to consider and vote...

Westvaco, Checkpoint in RF tag alliance.
June 1, 2001... Westvaco Corp, New York, has entered into a joint development, manufacturing and distribution alliance with Checkpoint Systems involving radio frequency (RF) tagging technology for anti-theft packaging and other uses. The alliance establishes...

AF&PA, GCA establish papiNet NA.
June 1, 2001... The American Forest & Paper Association and the Graphic Communications Association have formed papiNet NA, a group to develop e-business processes and standards for the total paper supply chain in the North American pulp, paper and paperboard...

Glatfelter unveils e-biz model.
June 1, 2001... P. H. Glatfelter Co., York, Pa., has recently unveiled MyGlatfelter.coms[SM], the first of its kind e-commerce business model developed specifically for the company's customers. The site has been in planning and development for nearly 18...

Imatra gets pulp line on line.
June 1, 2001... Stora Enso's Imatra mill has started up its new 600,000mtpy bleached hardwood pulp line. Based on birch, the new line will result in a net capacity increase of just over 400,000 mtpy, as it replaces an existing 190,000-mtpy line built in the...

Joutseno Starts up new line.
June 1, 2001... Metsa-Botnia's Joutseno Pulp mill was expected to start up its new fiber line on May 15, slightly ahead of previously announced schedules. The $250-million project raises the mill's capacity from 410,000 mtpy to about 600,000 mtpy of bleached...

Holmen to build new newsprint PM.
June 1, 2001... According to a decision in principle made by Holmen's board in late-April, the company will build a new newsprint machine at either its Braviken Paper Mill in Norrkoping, Sweden, or at Papelera Peninsular's newsprint mill just outside Madrid...

Frovi gets new digester.
June 1, 2001... AssiDoman is to invest SEK 180 million ($17 million) in a new batch digester plant at its Frovi pulp and board mill, to replace older equipment. The new plant is expected to start up in mid 2002. The project will improve the quality of...

Mercer to boost Rosenthal capacity again.
June 1, 2001... Having started up the converted kraft pulp mill at Rosenthal in eastern Germany in late 1999, Mercer International now plans to expand Capacity from 280,000 mtpy to 350,000 mtpy over the next three years. The major planned investments include...

APRIL'S new Riaupulp line is up, but debt still burdens.
June 1, 2001... After a successful commissioning and trial operation period, the first phase of the Riaupulp pulp line project began commercial operation in the first quarter of 2001. Investment in the 450,000-mtpy project began before the onset of the Asian...

Voith Paper inaugurates Indonesia service center.
June 1, 2001... The new Voith Paper Service Center, in Karawang, 60 km east of Jakarta on the Island of Java, was officially inaugurated on April 17, 2001. The service center has a floor area of 7,000 [m.sup.2] and offers Voith Paper's entire service line...

Nippon and Daishowa to sell.
June 1, 2001... Nippon Paper Industries and Daishowa Paper have reported to the Fair Trade Commission a plan to divest capacity equivalent to 500,000 mtpy of coated paper and woodfree paper to a third party. The scheme represents remedial measures under the...

Asia Kraft Paper gets automated PM.
June 1, 2001... Asia Kraft Paper has ordered a new corrugating materials machine for its Samutsakorn mill, which produces both corrugating materials and kraft paper. Startup is scheduled for2003. The 5.1-meter wide, 4.6-meter trim liner and fluting machine...

Venepal and Manpa up for grabs?
June 1, 2001... Printing and writing, tissue and packaging papermaker, Manufacturas de Papel (Manpa), is holding talks with Kimberly-Clark (K-C) about a strategic partnership involving all of Manpa's businesses, according to the Venezuelan company. Manpa is...

ABB Process Industries.
June 1, 2001... ABB has launched customer testimonial video on its online Pulp & Paper Portal at www.abb.com/pulpandpaper to coincide with weekly customer success stories. The ABB portal also features streaming video clips for ABB eBusiness solutions; online...

Allimand reports a successful first year.
June 1, 2001... Allimand reports a successful first year since launch of its new soft calender pilot line at its headquarters in Rives, France. The soft calender allows customers to carry out tests on their own paper to determine the best possible...

BASF Freeport committed to reducing nitrate emissions.
June 1, 2001... BASF has cut its nitrate emissions in half at its Freeport, Tex., site as a direct result of a $8.5 million investment in new technology allowing nitrates to be recovered from by-product streams and converted into nitric acid. With an annual...

DuPont Soy Technologies.
June 1, 2001... DuPont Soy Technologies is the new division name of an expanded focus for Dupont's soy polymer-based business using bioengineered agricultural raw materials for industrial applications. Dupont bought Protein Technologies International in 1997...

Forestweb and Reel Time.
June 1, 2001... Forestweb and Reel Time, a Chicago-based news and forecast service for publication papers, formed an editorial partnership. Reel Time's editors, Verle Sutton and Ross Hay-Roe, will be providing Forestweb's PriceBeat delivered prices for...

Hercules Inc.
June 1, 2001... Hercules Inc. has completed the sale of its hydrocarboa resins and select portions of the rosins resins businesses to Eastman Chemical Co., for $244 million. In addition, Hercules will retain net working capital of some $22 million. About 700...

S.C., Service Center.
June 1, 2001... Metso Paper officially opened a thermal coating operation at its Aiken County, S.C., Service Center. The new operation expands the roll cover facility with ceramic press rolls, carbide/fluoro-polymer release covers for carrying rolls, carbide...

Honeywell Industrial Control.
June 1, 2001... Honeywell Industrial Control's Hi-Spec Solutions business has released an enhanced version of its Uniformance[R] plant information management system, offering improved ease-of-use features, increased reliability, and lower cost of ownership...

Mercia Software.
June 1, 2001... Mercia Software is expanding its MerciaLincs demand and supply chain planning system across all 100 North American locations of Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. under a project that consolidates SSCC's requirements for replenishment and...

Metso Paper will open a new Service Center.
June 1, 2001... Metso Paper will open a new Service Center with 170 employees in Beloit, Wis., in November that will serve as the logistics center for the central distribution of spare parts and consumables in North America. The new center will also have the...

ONDEO Nalco.
June 1, 2001... ONDEO Nalco, Naperville, Ill., has purchased the paper coating chemicals business of GEO Specialty Chemicals for an undisclosed price. GEO will retain all of its manufacturing facilities, and its plant in Harrison, N.J., will supply ONDEO...

OSI Software Inc.
June 1, 2001... OSI Software Inc. has changed its name to OSIsoft, reflecting its strength in software development of diverse web-centric software products and continued market expansion in discrete manufacturing, telecommunications and trading partners. The...

Paperloop has purchased the Paper Summit exhibition from TAPPI.
June 1, 2001... Paperloop has purchased the Paper Summit exhibition from TAPPI for an undisclosed amount, and will take over organization of next year's event through its CMM group. The TAPPI show, now held every three years in Atlanta, is the foremost pulp...

Voith Paper.
June 1, 2001... Voith Paper, Heidenheim, Germany, has reported two new, world speed records. On March 15, 2001, PM 9 at SAICA, Spain, recorded 90 g/[m.sup.2]-corrugating medium running at a speed of 1202 m/min for 4 hours and 16 minutes. The same facility's...

In memory of Mark D. Barrett.
June 1, 2001... Mark Barrett, 48, died on March 30, 2001. He had been hospitalized since he was critically injured in an automobile accident last October. He had been employed by Andritz-Ahlstrom. Barrett was born June 2, 1952 in Rumford, Maine. He was a...

Global change and challenges.
June 1, 2001... It is common knowledge that the pulp and paper industry is going global, but the speed with which this is happening is now affecting everyone in the paper industry. Hardly a day goes by without hearing of a paper industry development...

Battling workplace stress.
June 1, 2001... Workplace stress is often compared to a violin string. Not enough pressure on the string will produce a weak, raspy tone. Too much pressure can cause a shrill noise, or even cause the string to snap. According to the American Institute of...

Performance improvement: Pathways to success.
June 1, 2001... Successful implementation of mill performance improvement projects shouldn't be all that difficult; but the nature of corporate hierarchies, relational dynamics among personnel and the ever-present mill operating "culture" can make it a real...

Georgia-Pacific: A change for the better.
June 1, 2001... Georgia-Pacific Corp. has been at the heart of many changes in the forest products industry since its founding in 1927 as the Georgia Hardwood Lumber Company. G-P joined the pulp and paper industry 30 years later and since then has become one...

Shaping up the wet end of papermaking.
June 1, 2001... Wet-end optimization is a buzzword in the chemistry arena, but what exactly does it mean? Our panel of experts weighs in on this and other issues, such as the most overlooked areas in wet end chemistry; how consolidation is changing new...

Papermaker's Top 50: Change is the rule.
June 1, 2001... There's no better place to see the trends transforming the paper industry than in Papermaker's Top 50 Paper Companies list. Consolidation, globalization, restructuring--they're all here. The big have gotten bigger--IP, G-P, Smurfit-Stone,...

Launching IT through e-space and time.
June 1, 2001... Everywhere I go all I near is e-commerce, e-commerce, e-commerce." This was the message of the 33rd Annual PIMA Information Technology International Conference held April 1-4, 2001 in the mile high city of Denver. The keynote address, "The...

Software & services value propositions.
June 1, 2001... Software and services companies focused on the forest products industry can deliver benefits--provided the expected deliverables of the project match the needed business result. While this sounds simplistic, the mismatch of application...

Metso's Marco Marcheggiani: Ready for change.
June 1, 2001... Metso Paper North America's recently appointed president, Marco Marcheggiani, is unflappable--an excellent quality for a man who has been so often called to make the best out of change. Take, for instance, the day he accepted his first...

HONEYWELL TRANSM ITTERS OFFER SPECIALIZED FUNCTIONS.
June 1, 2001... Honeywell's Sensing and Control Business, headquartered in Freeport, Ill., has introduced the APT4000 series as the newest addition to its line of analytical process transmitters. Designed specifically for process industries such as pulp and...

HEX700 PANELS OFFER ALTERNATIVE TO EXPANDED POLYSTYRENE.
June 1, 2001... Pactiv Corp., Lake Forest, Ill., offers its Hex700 [TM] panels as an alternative to expanded polystyrene (EPS) void-fill panels. Pactiv says it developed the product in response to packager and consumer requests for a paper-based, void-fill...

MOPS3I IS INTERNET-READY.
June 1, 2001... Kvaerner Chemetics, Vancouver, Canada, has launched its MOPS3i application geared toward the pulp and paper industry. The application provides vertical and horizontal system integration to help mills consolidate process and product...

RUN SMOOTHER, LONGER WITH SAFEGREASE 2.
June 1, 2001... Mills can replace manual machine inspection and lubrication routines with this automatic grease bearing lubrication system from John Crane Safematic, Morton Grove, Ill. The Safegrease 2 Automated Lubrication System is easy to run and...

NEW WAY TO REPLACE WORN PACKING.
June 1, 2001... Flex-A-Seal, Essex Junction, Vt., has developed an innovative way to extract worn packing from pumps, valves and flanges. The Water Force Packing Extractor uses an air operated, high pressure water jet system, a high pressure hose extraction...

STRANTROL 885 MEASURES CONDUCTIVITY, TEMP CONTROL.
June 1, 2001... US Filter Stranco Products, Bradley, Ill., has designed its Strantrol[R] 885 Conductivity/Temperature Controller to accurately and reliably maintain conductivity and temperature in cooling water and industrial process applications. The...

IQWETENDMD INTEGRATES SCANNER CONTROLS, ADVANCED WET END CONTROLS.
June 1, 2001... IQWetendMD control technology from Metso Automation, Tampere, Finland, integrates traditional scanner-based controls with advanced wet end controls--something that has never before been done, says Metso. The IQWetendMD system operates as...

HONEYWELL TRANSDUCERS OFFER CUSTOM OPTIONS.
June 1, 2001... The SGS Series of pressure and submersible pressure (level) transducers is offered by the Sensing and Control Business of Honeywell, Freeport, Ill. The product offers custom pressure/depth ranges, custom cable lengths, and a variety of...

MSDS MANAGEMENT SERVICE AVAILABLE FREE ONLINE.
June 1, 2001... MSDSBank.com is a new website dedicated to management of Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS.) The site features a library of hundreds of thousands of MSDS for common chemical products. MSDS compliance requires companies to maintain current...

SELF-CONTAINED NEMA 4 MICRO DRIVE IS FLEXIBLE, COMPACT.
June 1, 2001... ABB Automation Inc. Drives and Power Products Group, New Berlin, Wis., has designed its ACS 160 drive as a modular unit for both wall mount and IEC motor mount installations. The ACS 160 is the pulp and paper industry's first self-contained...

PEOPLE.
June 1, 2001... PULP & PAPER BadgerPaper Mills Inc., Peshtigo, Wis., has appointed John T. Paprocki to the board of directors. Boise Cascade Corp., Boise, Idaho, has elected Robert Egan vice president, information technology. Buckeye...

Creditors sting Asia Pulp and Paper.
June 1, 2001... The latest blow to Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) was the Singapore High Court decision instructing APP to pay $11.5 million to two suppliers. Fibre Source International sued APP for $1.53 million and Avebe sought $9.97 million over lack of...

DEATHS.
June 1, 2001... Past PIMA Members Otha Winningham Sr. and Andrew C. Miller have recently passed away.