Globally, the tissue
industry is adding
well over 2.3 million tons of capacity in at least 100 new machines
and major rebuilds this year and next, according to Tissue World's
Projects Survey 2008, the first of its kind carried out by the
magazine.
Asia represents about 40% of the total, with Europe
taking 23%, North
and Latin America around 16% each, according to the survey figures,
with Middle East at 5%.
For start-up this year, more than 1.3
million tons of new
capacity is shown in the list. For next year, the total is 1 million
tons, with 2010 and subsequent years representing an insignificant
tonnage.
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These figures should be treated with caution, however. Data in
the survey are only a guide. Project information (including some
capacity figures), which comes from machinery suppliers, Tissue
World magazine and directly from mills, is incomplete. A single
large machine could skew the data significantly. In addition,
the list does not in general include data from the many small
machine suppliers, particularly in Asia, whose machines are often
small but can be numerous. Statistically, therefore, the list
is to be treated as a guideline only.
However that may be, it
is clear that China
is the dominant country in the world, with expected additional
capacity of close to 800,000 tons. It is followed a long way back
by the US, where figures are most likely understated in our list.
No other country has more than four projects (Brazil) or more
than about 100,000 tons of additional capacity in the twoyear
period.
This is largely thanks to the remarkable expansion at APP, which
is believed to be
starting between
40 and 60 new machines in 2007-09. As reported in Tissue World
September, RISI expects APP to be No 5 producer in the world when
its current round of investment is complete.
Most of the capacity
addition is the result
of construction by the large paper machine suppliers - Metso,
Voith, Andritz, A Celli, Kawanoe Zoki, Over Meccanica, PMP, PMT,
Recard, Toscotec. However, small machine manufacturers are highly
active in some of the developing regions, though their machines
can be very small and quality is variable.
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Of the machines shown,
the greatest percentage
trim at 2.7-2.8 m, as might be expected. Larger machines (5.5
m trim) are largely concentrated in North America, though there
are a couple in China, too, and one in Saudi Arabia, while another
is in the planning stages for Turkey.
Machine speed varies far more significantly, with many of the
new machines planning to run at around 1000 m/min, while the most
advanced dry crepe units have design speed of 2200 m/min.
In this
year's Projects Survey
we have made no attempt to include projects in the planning stage.
Even before the economic crisis, many such projects were never
realized. Since the critical events of the past couple of months
in world financial markets, few small or medium sized companies
will be able to find funding for new projects.
We would expect
next year's survey
to be more complete in its coverage of the projects actually taking
place around the world. At the same time, it is clear that fewer
expansion announcements may be expected in the next 12 months.
