One of the world’s most modern paper factories, with an annual capacity of 750,000 tonnes, is taking shape in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. The ground-breaking ceremony at the Sandersdorf-Brehna site near Bitterfeld took place on Friday 10th August. The plant owner and operator is the Landau (Rhineland Palatinate) based Progroup AG and at Sandersdorf-Brehna, the Group is now building its third paper factory which will increase its total annual production of container board to 1.85 million tonnes. With an overall investment of €375 million, the new project will create 140 jobs directly and up to a further 350 jobs indirectly.
Peter Resvanis (Progroup AG), Thomas Holzer (Voith Paper), Maximilian Heindl (Progroup AG), Reiner Haseloff (Ministerpräsident Sachsen-Anhalt), Jürgen Heindl (Progroup AG), Armin Willingmann (Wirtschaftsminister Sachsen-Anhalt) and Andy Grabner (Bürgermeister Sandersdorf-Brehna).
Jürgen Heindl, CEO and Chairman of Progroup AG said, “We are systematically pursuing our Green Hightech Philosophy with this project; and with the environment at the forefront of our minds we are consciously investing in state-of-the-art equipment.”
The new paper factory is being built on a site covering an area of 450,000 sqm. As well as the new Voith paper machine, a second stage of the project will also include the construction of an RDF power plant which will use its energy-efficient design to supply the new paper machine with power and steam, thus largely freeing the paper factory from its dependence on fossil fuels. The impurities contained in recovered paper will be converted into heat in the site’s own RDF power plant. The paper mill will be equipped with an optimised water system and the company will invest in ultra-modern wastewater treatment.
With the new paper mill in Sandersdorf-Brehna, Progroup AG is underpinning its position as one of Europe’s fastest organically growing containerboard and corrugated board manufacturer. As much as 85% of the containerboard manufactured in its own plants is consumed in the ten corrugated sheet feeder factories it currently owns in Germany, France, the Czech Republic, Poland, Great Britain and Italy. Only recovered paper is used as a raw material in order to reduce the ecological footprint.
Heindl concludes, “The new project slots into our One Mill Strategy which systematically follows our Green Hightech Philosophy. To put it another way, not a single tree is felled to supply our state-of-the-art mills. In the era of climate change this is conscious, real-life environmental protection.”
Jürgen Heindl hands over the spade from the 1999 ground-breaking ceremony of the first paper mill in Burg, to his son, Maximilian.
