(News from RISI) Hengan International is delaying new tissue PMs due to current oversupply pressure.
The Chinese tissue giant ordered eight 60,000 tpy PMs in 2012, intending to boost its total tissue capacity to almost 1.4 million tpy.
Valmet and Andritz will supply the PMs, each providing four. The PMs will go in pairs to Hengan’s existing sites in Shandong’s Weifang city, Anhui’s Wuhu city, Hunan’s Changde city and Chongqing municipality.
The first of the eight units was originally to come onstream by the end of 2013, but Hengan is pushing back the startup to the second half of this year.
According to the firm’s annual report released this week, five other 60,000 tpy PMs are also planned to start up in 2014, and the other two will start up by 2015.
The firm believes that improving living standards in China will keep driving the consumption of tissue in the country.
However, this has also brought huge investments into the sector, resulting in the present oversupply pressure and increasingly intense competition.
The firm’s sales of tissue products in 2013 increased by around 11.6% over 2012 to more than HK$10.2 billion ($1.3 billion), compared with the year-on-year growth of 14.1% between 2012 and 2011.
To prepare for the coming new capacity coming in the second half of this year, the firm plans to increase its shipment to overseas markets.
