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

(News from RISI) – China’s Hengan International has started up a new 60,000tpy tissue PM at a mill in Changde city, Hunan province.

The commissioning has raised its total tissue capacity to 1.03 million tpy.

The machine, which came online in January, was supplied by Andritz.

It has a width of 5.6m and a design speed of 2,000m/min.

An identical tissue PM was fired up at the same plant in 2014.

The firm will start running six more 60,000tpy tissue PMs in 2015 and 2016.

A pair will go to its mill in Chongqing municipality.

Another two units are planned for the Weifang plant in Shandong province, and the remaining two will be installed at the Wuhu mill in Anhui province.

Hengan ordered the eight PMs in 2012, and originally planned to bring all of them online by 2015, with the first one coming on stream in 2013.

However, its aggressive expansion schedule was slowed by growing oversupply pressure in the tissue segment in China.