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Investments
Moving towards 100% fossil free production Metsä Board is designing the world’s most modern, fully fossil free folding boxboard mill in Kaskinen. In addition, investments are underway at the Husum and Kemi mills, which will help Metsä Board offer even better service to its customers and move towards the Metsä Group-wide objective of being fully fossil free by the end of 2030.
Husum
Miina Poikolainen, photos: Metsä Group
KASKINEN Planning the most modern paperboard mill in the world
If everything goes according to plan, and the investment decision is made, Kaskinen will become home to a fully fossil free paperboard mill in 2026. “A paperboard mill project of this scope has not been seen in Finland in the last 50 years,” says Ari Kiviranta ,
be used as efficiently as possible to eliminate production side streams.
Environmental Impact Assessment began in January, and the environmental permit process is expected to last one year. In other words, the investment decision will be made in 2024 at the earliest. “This is a billion-euro investment, which absolutely requires an environmental permit. The permit conditions will be strict, as the goal is to keep emissions to a minimum.” Kiviranta points out that the environmental targets can- not be achieved with wastewater treatment alone but that water consumption must be minimised from the outset. “The mill’s water consumption will be dozens of percent- age points smaller than that of our current mills. The same is true of energy. While energy use cannot be avoided in paperboard drying, we will review the process carefully to reduce energy consumption as much as possible.”
Metsä Board’s SVP, Technology. The pre-engineering for the new mill began last year. “At the end of this year, we will have clear plans for the technology to be used at the mill as well as a cost estimate for the project. In our discussions with equipment suppliers, we have been presented with a great deal of modern tech- nology that is not used in our existing mills yet.” Thanks to the new equipment, there will be less pro- duction waste and fewer stoppages, which in turn will help reduce the mill’s environmental impacts. Raw materials will
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