Metsä Tissue has said its renewed tissue paper machine at its Mänttä mill in Finland has moved from trial phase to continuous production, boosting the machine’s production capacity by 15%.
Supplied by Valmet, the machine will produce fresh fibre-based tissue paper products especially for the Finnish market.
The investment aimed to increase production and also improve the quality of the company’s Lambi, Serla and Katrin tissue paper products.
Kari Karttunen, Vice President Production of the Mänttä mill, said: “Tissue papers are familiar to consumers’ everyday life and these products are important to the security of supply.
“The renewal of the Mänttä tissue machine enables us to increase production and at the same time take an important step towards fossil-free production. “Development work on the renewal continues and I believe we will achieve the benefits we are aiming for and beyond.
“Our energy consumption will be reduced by around 15 per cent per tonne of paper produced, leading to lower carbon dioxide emissions in line with our sustainability targets.”
The first products were trialled in June and Metsä Tissue said the softness and strength of the paper have further improved. It added that the new technology also enables the tissue paper to be produced “more energy-efficiently” than before.
The machine uses Valmet’s ViscoNip technology, which the supplier said “has major benefits related to improving product quality, reducing energy consumption and increase production capacity and is very well suited for rebuilds”.
Metsä Tissue said its strategy remains to serve customers close to its markets with sustainably-produced hygiene tissues and solutions. The main raw material used is renewable northern wood fresh fibre.
Metsä Tissue’s Mänttä mill produces Serla, Lambi and Katrin tissue paper products and customers’ own brands as well as SAGA baking paper products. It has three tissue machines, one greaseproof paper machine and 11 tissue converting lines.
