Stora Enso is investing €97m to expand production at the Skoghall site in Sweden. At the same time, the company is initiating a pre-feasibility study to convert the second, currently idle line at its Oulu site in Finland, to a packaging board line.
Market demand for sustainable packaging is increasing. The investment in Skoghall will further drive growth in attractive end-use segments, such as liquid packaging board and coated unbleached kraftliner, and is expected to be completed in the second half of 2023. Following the investment, the annual packaging board production at Skoghall can be increased by approximately 100,000 tonnes, to a total capacity exceeding 900,000 tonnes, subject to environmental permits.
The investment decision follows the completion of the feasibility study announced in November 2020. Based on the study, Stora Enso has decided not to go ahead with the originally planned pulp capacity expansion. The original feasibility study had an estimated capital expenditure of approximately €800–850m for both pulp and board capacity expansion. The board expansion in Skoghall will be implemented through debottlenecking of one of the existing production lines, and executed in two steps, utilising the scheduled maintenance stops.
Following the successful conversion in Oulu from paper to kraftliner production for food applications, Stora Enso has decided to initiate a pre-feasibility study to convert the second, idle paper line into a packaging board line. The first conversion ramp-up in Oulu has proceeded ahead of plan since production started at the beginning of the year. A second conversion would further improve the Oulu site’s flexibility and competitiveness, through integrated pulp availability, additional fixed and variable cost savings, and ability to utilise the adjacent deep-sea harbour. The pre-feasibility study will be completed early 2022.
