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

Georgia-Pacific (GP) will install a new tissue machine and roll storage building to increase its consumer (retail) bath tissue business at its Naheola, Alabama-based mill. In a $120m investment, the new tissue machine will use modern Crescent former technology, replacing two older machines but increasing capacity at the mill.

It will support new bath tissue converting lines that are currently being started up at Naheola. Engineering and related work has begun, and start-up of the new machine is scheduled for 2020.

Christian Fischer, chief executive and president of GP, said: “This is one of
many investments we are making at our operations across the State of Alabama, and it highlights the long history and great relationships we have in the state and in the communities where we operate.”

In the past five years, capital investment at the Naheola mill has totalled more than $500m, and GP’s statewide investments have totalled approximately $1.6bn. The Naheola mill currently employs more than 900 people. It produces retail bath tissue and paper towels, and also makes bleached paperboard. These latest investments continue Georgia-Pacific’s modernisation of the Naheola mill, which includes ongoing construction of a new biomass boiler and woodyard.