Estanc is manufacturing different products to the new bioproduct mill in Kemi
Metsä Group is one of the largest Finnish forest industry companies that operates in international markets. Metsä Group subcompany Metsä Fibre is building a new innovative bioproduct mill to Kemi, Finland. Investment size is 1,85 billion EUR making it the largest investment ever made by the Finnish forest industry.
The new mill will be started up at the third quarter of 2023 and the annual pulp production volume will be 1,5 million tons. Partnership between Estanc, Metsä and Valmet started in April 2021. Working closely with Valmet – leading global developer and supplier of technologies, we will provide 25 products to the mill: including reactors, blow tanks, heat exchanger, feed water tank and filter tanks. Largest of them 62 meters long with a diameter of 6 meters, weighting 170 tons.
Building the Metsä Group’s bioproduct mill has been a long and well-planned process. The concept was launched in the early 2010s, construction in Kemi started in August 2020 with preparatory work. The investment decision was made in February 2021 and the new bioproduct mill will be completely ready to start-up in the second half of 2023. Resource efficiency and low environmental impact are the two main elements for the new bioproduct mill in Kemi. Resource efficiency means getting an optimal yield from wood, in terms of the volume of bioproducts obtained, and using chemicals, water and energy as efficiently as possible in production.
This is a large-scale job for Estanc, we have four Project Managers working on the project and our team is manufacturing 25 products in total. Most difficult was manufacturing of the reactors, what happened in two parts. First Estanc-made reactors were installed at Kemi’s mill in March 2022. Second shipment will be there in July 2022. Pressure tests for Estanc’s vessels will take place in August 2022 and then all our manufactured equipment will be installed on the Kemi’s site and will be ready for use.
Estanc’s Project Manager Martin Lään comments: “Designing the reactors was the most challenging part of the project.” First time in the company’s history part of the manufacturing was done in Paldiski’s rental workshop, located near harbor, so the information exchange and project management from distance created additional challenges. Fortunately, Estanc has a lot of experience with pulp and paper industries, so there were no insurmountable problems.
Being part of such a large-scale project is great for Estanc. Especially as the new mill is helping to make a more sustainable pulp production. It will use 100% of each tree and side streams to maximize productivity and minimize waste. It is also important that all the wood is coming from sustainably managed forests in the Nordic region, and it will generate significantly more electricity than it uses, also the new Kemi bioproduct mill will operate completely fossil-free.
Sustainability is one of the core values of Estanc – we are committed to 6 of the United Nations Sustainable Development goals. Estanc works through a responsible approach, and we manufacture products that enable our end-customers a sustainable operation. Kemi’s bioproduct mill is a great example of that – with our reactors we have helped to make the production of pulp more sustainable than it has ever been.
