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

(News from RISI) China’s Shandong Dongshun Group is testing a new 16,000tpy tissue PM at its mill in Taian city, Shandong province.

The Kawanoe Zoki unit has a trim width of 2.76m and a design speed of 1,000m/min.

The firm will also soon install an identical PM at the same site.

In addition, another pair of tissue PMs will be delivered to the Taian mill in July and September respectively.

Their startups are scheduled for the end of this year. Each with a trim width of 2.85m and a design speed of 1,300m/min, they will be co-supplied by Valmet and the Kawanoe Zoki.

The two suppliers agreed that Kawanoe Zoki is responsible for the marketing, manufacturing, and installation of the machines.

The units are to be produced at the Japanese supplier’s plant in China, and some key components including headboxes, Yankee cylinders and suction pressure rolls are from Valmet.

The suppliers will supply two more PMs, identical to the first pair, to Shandong Dongshun.

The second pair is scheduled to come online in the second half of 2015.

In addition to its expansion in Shandong, the tissue maker will test a 16,000tpy Kawanoe Zoki PM at the end of May at its site in Zhaodong city, in China’s northwestern province of Heilongjiang.

The unit is 2.76m wide and has a design speed of 1,000m/min.

The Zhaodong site currently runs a 12,000tpy tissue machine.

Diversifying into hand towels: Shandong Dongshun has long been focusing on the production of toilet paper and facial tissue, and it is now diversifying into the paper hand towel sector.

According to Kawanoe Zoki, it will supply two PMs making the grade to the firm’s Taian facility.

Each will have a trim width of 2.85m and a design speed of 450m/min. Output of the PMs will have a basis weight range of 32-50g/m².

The first PM is planned to be delivered around November 2014, followed by the second in November 2015.

The tissue sector in China is currently confronting an oversupply issue due to a quick increase of capacity over recent years.

Instead of focusing on toilet and facial tissue products, more producers are tapping into varied end use markets, with hand towels as one such new direction.