Tissue World Magazine
Alexandra Stuthridge, Technical Business Manager, BioProducts Institute (BPI)

Europe

Retailers and Tissue Makers focus on Sustainability at Tissue World Conference in Barcelona

Best gathering of distinguished speakers ever at Tissue World

“The Chinese tissue industry is still very fragmented but changing at breakneck speed. At the end of 2011, 220 tissue paper making mills with almost 2,000 tissue PMs and a capacity of 5.665m tonnes were identified. Growth is averaging 8.3% per annum and is expected to continue at 8.4% until 2021. Consumption is expected to reach levels of 12m tonnes in the next ten years. There is also a changing regional concentration in the country’s development with an increasing focus on central and northeast China, which is seeing quicker growth.

“As tissue penetration increases, new consumers will start buying tissue products with improving retail systems. The pace of urbanisation especially in central China is also very important. When people move from rural to urban areas their hygienic habits also need to change, favouring tissue. We are seeing increasing product penetration and quality improvements and expect toweling to start to grow in the coastal strip zone. However, an explosion of new investments but also closures and project delays is likely to impact as of 2013.

“Prospects for small companies with older Chinese-made equipment, high number of employees and low average product quality are less promising – it is likely that industry restructuring will continue and many small producers will need to exit the business.

“Newcomers from other industries will need to create their own brands, establish distribution networks and understand the importance of marketing and rules of competition. This may be easier to those coming from other consumer products sectors rather than process industries, including other paper and board businesses.”

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Tissue industry key debate

Issue: Evolution or Revolution?

Best practice in sustainability across supply chain from forest to customers to consumers. Concerns: pulp suppliers, permakers, converters, wrapping and packaging, transport and logistics, distribution, trading, retailing and purchasing.

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ITALY

Two Lucca area mills to be sold and converting lines moved out of Italy

German tissue giant WEPA has announced more cost-cutting measures.

In addition to the planned sale of two mills in Italy, the firm revealed plans to cut some 150 out of a total of 1,500 jobs at its five sites in Germany.

WEPA said it closed a framework agreement with the joint works council and the IG BCE trade union that provides for socially responsible job cuts. The firm mainly plans to resort to attrition, the non-renewal of fixedterm contracts, early retirements and mutually agreed terminations of work contracts. Moreover, WEPA’s employees in Germany agreed to a reduction of their bonus pay check at the end of the year.

According to WEPA, the cost-cutting measures are due to the high costs and price pressure in the sanitary paper sector.

WEPA chief executive Martin Krengel said: “As a producer of commodity products we need to use any opportunity to streamline our business and reduce costs when rising prices for raw materials, energy and logistics cannot be passed on to the customer.

“It is our only chance to maintain our competitiveness and safeguard our long-term future as a family-owned business.”

“It is our only chance to maintain our competitiveness and safeguard our long-term future.”

Mills for grabs in Italy: WEPA revealed plans to part with two of the five tissue mills of its subsidiary WEPA Lucca in August. The sites in question, WEPA’s Piano della Rocca and Fabbriche di Vallico mills in the Lucca area, produce 17,000tpy and 31,000tpy respectively.

Moreover, the firm plans to move two converting lines from its Salanetti converting facility to other production units outside of Italy. WEPA hopes to finalise the cost-cutting measures by the end of next year.

Pamplona sells WEPA share: As WEPA further revealed, it is no longer partly owned by the UK-based private equity firm Pamplona Capital Partners.

According to the tissue manufacturer, Pamplona sold its 32% share in WEPA to the firm Marsberger Kraftwerksgesellschaft (MKG) in August. The value of the deal was not revealed.

MKG is owned by Martin, Wolfgang and Joachim Krengel, who also own the majority stake in WEPA. Thus the firm is back under full family-ownership. Pamplona acquired its stake in WEPA in 2010. At the time, the firm revealed plans to invest some Euro 150m over the following 18 months.

Among the planned investment projects were the installation of a new tissue paper machine in Germany and the expansion of WEPA’s hygiene products sites in Spain, France, Italy and Poland.

News from RISI (www.risiinfo.com)


Omet boosts capa city with additional facility

Omet has boosted its capacity after it opened up a facility dedicated to the production of tissue converting

The company’s new facility based in Lecco, Italy
The company’s new facility based in Lecco, Italy

The move is the first stage of the company’s plan for its tissue division over the next few years.

The new facility based in Lecco, Italy, has been operational since October 2012 and consists of 1,450 square metres dedicated to the manufacturing sector and 550 square metres of office space.

Marco Calcagni, sales and marketing director, said: “The significant increase in orders for machinery in recent years has not been the only reason that led us to implement a further expansion of the production department of OMET Srl.

“Our machines division for tissue needs room to develop new projects that we are pursuing with great conviction and confidence and that will be the leading industry’s technology in the coming years.

“This is the first major change that will bring great advantages in terms of prduction efficiency and capacity to meet the growing demands of our machines from all over the world.”

The company has also installed photovoltaic panels on the roof of the plant, which fully cover the electricity needs of the business.


FRANCE

MP Hygiene in early start up of new tissue PM at Annonay mill in France

The tissue converter MP Hygiene has ramped up production on the new 30,000tpy tissue machine at its

Members of the start-up team at MP Hygiene
Members of the start-up team at MP Hygiene

greenfield mill in Annonay in southern France.

The PM was not scheduled to come on stream until Q1 2013, but the building and installation was completed earlier than expected, a company spokesperson said. Start up took place on 12 October.

The Toscotec-supplied unit is capable of producing 100tpd of tissue on average. Its design speed is 1,900m/ min and it has a net web width of 2.8m.

The new factory has created 33 jobs.

MP Hygiene announced its plans to build the factory last year after having received a grant of €4.2m from a state re-industrialisation aid programme. The remaining funding has come from equity and loans, the company said. The total cost of the project ended up at €28m, instead of the €19.2m first expected.

MP Hygiene converts tissue paper into wiping paper used in industry and food processing, as well as the medical and janitorial sectors, at factories in Annonay and St Rambert d’Albon.

It has previously bought the tissue paper it needed in Italy, but will now instead utilise some 2,200tpy of its own production.

Furthermore, it has established a joint venture with CGMP, a French producer of paper table cloths and napkins, which will consume another 3,000tpy of the Annonay-made tissue.

The remaining capacity will be sold on the market to other converters.

News from RISI (www.risiinfo.com)


GERMANY

K-C sells its Reisholz tissue mill and German rolled tissue brands

Kimberly-Clark (K-C) has signed an agreement to sell its Reisholz tissue manufacturing mill and its German rolled tissue brands to private equity fund Palero Invest.

The sale is part of the tissue giant’s global tissue restructuring plan announced in January 2011. The company said that Palero intends to continue to operate the mill as a going concern. The transaction will be completed in the first quarter of 2013. The brands involved in the sale include Hakle® Dry Toilet Tissue, Dick&Durstig® and Servus®.

Kim Underhill, president, Kimberly- Clark Consumer Europe, said: “This is a strategic divestment and I believe selling Reisholz and the associated rolled bath tissue brands in Germany is the right decision for the future of the mill and people who work there.”

Underhill added that Germany “remains a key market” for the business.

Kimberly-Clark will continue to use the Hakle® Moist brand name for its Moist Bath Tissue brand in Germany for a period of time, after which the product will switch to another brand name.

It will continue to be the owner of the Hakle® brand across both Dry Bath Tissue and Moist Bath Tissue in Austria and Switzerland.


SWEDEN

Swedish Tissue looks to cut 18 jobs

Sofidel subsidiary Swedish Tissue has started a process in which 18 staff are to be made redundant.

The move is part of cost-cutting measures at its plant in Kisa, Sweden. A spokesman for the company told TW that the action that is underway aims to strengthen the company’s competitiveness.

He said: “The move is in order to make the company more capable of responding to the recession that is affecting many European countries and, in the medium term, better equipped for the increasing challenges of the market.”

The final number of staff to be made redundant will be announced following the completion of negotiation with trade unions.


SC A finalises talks on redundancies at hygiene products HQ in Sweden

SCA Hygiene Products has wrapped up negotiations with employee representatives regarding job cuts at its Swedish headquarters in Mölndal, Gothenburg, in the south of the country.

In spring, the firm said it might cut up to 94 jobs, mainly white-collar positions, at the site, but after discussions the company has decided to only take out around half that number. The cuts will be achieved either through redundancies or various pension schemes.

Earlier, it was also possible that a few positions at the incontinence products manufacturing unit in nearby Mölnlycke, Gothenburg, might also be affected, but this will not happen.

The headcount reduction is aimed at cutting costs and increasing efficiency and profitability at the company.

News from RISI (www.risiinfo.com)


FINLAND

Metsä Tissue completes statutory negotiations in its Finnish units; to ax e 19 jobs

Metsä Group has concluded statutory negotiations in its Finnish tissue and cooking paper business units making 19 staff redundant.

The negotiations were part of the company’s on-going company-wide organisational restructuring targeted to improve profitability.

Mika Joukio, Metsä Tissue’s chief executive, said: “By restructuring and reorganising our operations we aim to secure our future competitiveness on the growing tissue and cooking paper market.”

The Finnish operations are based in Espoo and Mänttä.


Tissue World project survey 2012: adition

The project survey in the Oct/Nov 2012 issue of TW asked machinery suppliers about their present and future projects in 2012-2013. ABK Group has now supplied its project information, which is published below.