 |
| Current Tissue News Headlines > Last Updated:
4 March, 2010 |
 |
1. Pulppy Corelex in Vietnam in full
production
The joint-venture company between Corelex Corporation of Japan and New Toyo
Pulppy of Vietnam recently started up a 2.8 m wide tissue machine from A Celli
Paper, according to the Italian company.
The Mill has an output of 80 tons/day of tissue products. A Celli supplied
the approach flow as well as the combining slitter rewinder AC861 with unwind
stands and calender 581. The opening ceremony is due on 4 March 2010.
For Corelex Group, this tissue machine is the third from A.Celli Paper. The
other two, including one of double width (5.6 m) are in operation in Japan.
2. US expansions: Clearwater and First Quality
(News from RISI)
Two US tissue producers are planning expansion projects, one with a $160 million
two-year plan that includes converting lines and possibly a tissue paper machine,
and the other for a site for a new PM, reports said.
Clearwater Paper initially plans on spending $30 million for two converting
lines at one of four locations in the Southeast by second quarter 2011. Tissue
paper from Clearwater mills in Las Vegas and Lewiston, ID, would feed the new
lines.
Aiming to expand its private label business in the East, Clearwater official
Matt Van Vleet said the new converting line product would be for new customers
and additional business from existing customers.
The company is considering, but has made no final decision on, constructing
a new through-air-dried (TAD) PM for making toilet paper and towels that would
likely be located at the same site as the new converting lines, company officials
said.
If the project is completed, Clearwater's converting capacity would rise to
40 million cases/yr from 30 million.
Also, First Quality Tissue, which runs a tissue paper mill in Lock Haven,
PA, and announced plans last year for a new tissue PM at an undetermined site,
was looking at locations in Georgia and South Carolina, according to local reports
in Georgia. The sites are in Augusta, GA, and Anderson, SC. First Quality also
was looking at a location in Utah last year.
3. Syassky orders Toscotec slitter rewinder for
Russia
On 24 December 2009, Syassky Pulp & Paper Mill, based in Saint Petersburg,
Russia, signed a contract with Toscotec for the supply of a TT WIND-H tissue
slitter rewinder.
The main reason for the new project is to reduce paper losses on two old existing
rewinders. The new state-of-the-art Toscotec rewinder will in fact serve two
existing tissue machines, PM2 and PM3. Delivery is foreseen for May 2010.
The TT WIND-H features two unwind stands and can handle parent rolls of 4300
mm width and 2600 mm diameter at a maximum speed of 1600 m/min. The rewinder
is equipped with an automatic slitting unit with 22 knives and with an automatic
shaft handling system. The project includes all the necessary auxiliaries as
well as control system, electrical cabinets and dedicated lubrication unit.
Syassky was founded in 1928 as one of the first paper mill of the Soviet period.
It now has three tissue machines and sells the whole production in Russia and
surrounding countries.
4. Kasuga of Japan orders Futura converting line
Kasuga of Fuji, Japan has ordered a tissue converting line from Futura SpA
of Lucca, Italy. Startup is scheduled for the third quarter of this year.
This 2.9-m machine will produce top quality embossed toilet tissue in single-
and two-ply. The line will feature two unwind stands, JOI embosser, trim cutter,
log saw and core winder.
Kasuga aims to enhance productive efficiency with the new line.
Futura sales manager Carlo Berti said: “We have worked closely with Kasuga,
and it is a great honour and responsibility to supply a line for such a high
level producer. Our lines have an established reputation for quality and ease
of use, and we are confident that this line will take Kasuga to a new level
of reliability, and guarantee a superb quality finished product.”
5. Hayat Kimya Turkey completes expansion with
new rewinder
In February 2010, Turkish company Hayat Kymia AS signed a contract with Toscotec
for the supply of a TT WIND-L tissue slitter rewinder for its new tissue production
line to be installed in the company’s mill in Yenikoy, located near the city
of Izmit.
Hayat Kimya, part of the Hayat Group with its headquarter in Istanbul, is
a leading tissue producer in the growing Turkish market. The company has recently
announced plans to double its production of tissue products in the Yenikoy mill
by adding a new 70.000 ton/yr tissue line.
The Toscotec supply will complete the project scope and will be fully integrated
in the production cycle being in line with the tissue machine and with the roll
handling system.
The TT WIND-L features two unwind stands and can handle parent rolls of 5600
mm width and 3000 mm diameter at a maximum operating speed of 1800 m/min. The
rewinder is equipped with an automatic slitting unit with 24 knives and with
an automatic shaft handling system. The project, defined on a turnkey basis,
includes all the necessary auxiliaries as well as the control system, electrical
cabinets and dedicated lubrication and hydraulic units.
Start up is planned for December this year.
6. SCA builds much bigger market presence
On 16 February SCA officially opened its new Sovetsk tissue mill, located
in the Tula region about two hours south of Moscow. The €90 million investment
in a greenfield mill on an 8.1 hectare plot includes a new 30,000 ton/yr tissue
machine, as well as DIP line, wastewater treatment plant, converting lines and
distribution centre. PMT, which supplied the paper machine, was the lead supplier
for the project.
SCA started to plan for a new tissue mill to serve the Moscow area as early
as 2002, according to PMT. A feasibility study was conducted in 2006, and the
formal decision to build a new mill was taken by SCA’s Board of Directors in
2007. The plant is the first greenfield mill in Russia since the 1970s.
Converting at the mill started in November 2008 and the paper machine began
producing paper in November 2009. The machine itself trims at 2.8 m and will
run at up to 1800 m/min, according to PMT, as reported in Tissue World’s e-newsletter
of 18 February.
The main product coming out of the mill is two and three-ply toilet tissue,
with almost all of it marketed under the SCA’s big Zewa brand. Zewa is the leading
tissue brand in Russia according to SCA. Per capita consumption in Russia for
consumer tissue, excluding AFH, is around 2 kg per year, compared with 10-12
kg for Western Europe. However, the annual growth rate for consumer tissue is
estimated to be around 9%.
Plans already are underway to start considering more tissue machines for the
site in the future, with SCA indicating that a larger 60,000 ton per year tissue
PM would be the most likely next step. SCA said that it searched for long a
time to identify a site that had the right combination of proximity to the giant
Moscow population, supporting infrastructure such as energy, water and roads,
as well as space for future expansion, before settling on Sovetsk. It has one
other tissue mill in Russia, at Svetogorsk about 150 km north of St Petersburg
near the Finnish border.
7. New world speed record on SCA’s Neuss PM2 in
Germany
SCA’s Neuss PM2 twin-wire-tissue machine achieved a 24-hour speed record with
a speed of 2200 m/min on 4 February 2010, according to a press release from
Albany International, which supplies the machine clothing for the machine.
Neuss PM2 was installed in 1972 and rebuilt several times in order to increase
machine speed and improve paper quality. It has a working width of 5320 mm and
produces – among other tissue products – the well-known brand Tempo.
The contributing solution came from the Albany press product line. A Dynatex
II press fabric was on the machine during the record run. Not only did this
fabric play its part in setting a new world record but also ran for an increased
life on this machine with fewer sheet breaks and with improved machine efficiency.
The new speed record was also “a result of continuous cooperation between the
Neuss mill and Albany International,” according to Albany.
8. Tissue continues to grow against the trend
– RISI (News from RISI)
By Esko Uutela
The global paper and board industry suffered horribly from the recent recession
and practically all grades and segments recorded declines in global consumption,
with graphic papers showing the poorest performance. But there was one exception:
tissue, or should we say more precisely, household and sanitary papers.
The statistics for 2009 are not yet complete, but based on preliminary figures
we can already assume that global tissue consumption continued to grow. Our
current estimate is that tissue consumption grew worldwide by 1.0-1.5% last
year, which is much below the long-term growth trend of almost 4% annually,
but still makes a major distinction in comparison with most other paper and
board grades.
The reason why the tissue sector did not react to the downturn as strongly
as other grades is simple: tissue consumption is not directly depending on economic
indicators or driving forces such as advertising revenues or industrial production.
A major part of tissue use is habitual and tissue products belong on our list
of daily necessities. Perhaps some awkward translations of Chinese tissue mill
names into English describe the character of the tissue paper business pretty
well, for example "Living Paper Mill", "Livelihood Paper Mill" or "Daily
Necessities Paper Mill". So tissue should be considered as a consumer product
rather than part of the industrial (paper) product sector.
Although it is difficult to imagine that the recession would have had a major
effect on personal toilet tissue use patterns in the western world, there are
some other tissue products and segments which bear consequences from the economic
downturn. The Away-from-Home (AfH) tissue sector is much more sensitive than
the consumer tissue sector: the deep recession curbed traveling, lodging, dining
out and reduced the industrial and office workforce, with direct reflections
in tissue consumption. Very simple: less traffic, less use.
The well-developed US AfH sector was particularly affected, showing a decline
of 3.7% in 2009, but European AfH tissue demand was also down by 1.5-2%. By
product group, napkins were hit hardest: at home paper napkins were dropped
from the shopping list and may have been replaced by cloth napkins or household
towels or just ignored; and in AfH applications additional savings were sought
through over-the-counter dispensing at fast food restaurants, which further
deepened the dive originating with the decreased number of outlet visitors.
China was once again the prime motor for driving the global tissue consumption
to a new record level of more than 28 million tons. Tissue consumption was hardly
influenced: our current estimate for China's tissue consumption growth in 2009
is 8.4%, but recent market reports from the country indicate that the last months
of 2009 were strong and it is possible that our estimate is conservative rather
than optimistic. For 2010 a full rebound is expected and Chinese tissue consumption
will grow by about 9%, if not even more (Figure 1).
Besides China a few other regions also survived well through the recession.
For example, in the Asia-Pacific region the largest market, South Korea, recorded
a substantial growth of 5% in its tissue consumption. In Latin America, the
Mexican market was surprisingly strong through the whole year and Brazil was
also rapidly recovering toward the end of the year. Tissue consumption in the
Middle East and Africa (North Africa in particular) did not see any major setback,
but rather only a small decline in the growth rate from the previous year.
The outlook for 2010 remains cautiously positive. North America and Western
Europe are expected to recover, although a full rebound will take time in the
AfH sector in particular. Some rationalization measures by the buyers (such
as the aforementioned over-the-counter napkin dispensing) may remain as the
pattern, thus reducing the traditional market volume, and there are only few,
if any, alternatives to win these lost quantities back to the tissue business.
The long-term outlook for the global tissue business is good. Globally, hygienic
standards are increasing, and even though the H1N1 epidemic sounds anything
but positive in the media, it indeed made a valuable contribution to the toweling
sector through increased hand washing and drying, as well as helped otherwise
stagnant hankies and facial tissue sales. The positive effect on tissue use
is that once established, habits such as hand washing and drying after a public
washroom visit tend to remain as the norm.
The future tissue business potential is huge. In 2008, the average per capita
consumption of tissue was not more than 4.2 kg, while the record by North America
was at a level of 24 kg. The growth potential in Asia with its population of
close to 5 billion is enormous. China's tissue consumption growth provides an
interesting example of how development could proceed in other countries such
as India (which is only in the take-off phase), Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh,
Vietnam, the Philippines and many others. In the USA, we expect only very marginal
per capita consumption growth as suppliers make efforts to save fiber and add
value by downsizing, lightweighting and rationalization measures through new
dispensing systems in the AfH business rather than selling more volume (tonnage).
Some thoughts for the longer-term future of tissue: today with an average
global tissue consumption of 4.2 kg per capita, we are at the level of 28 million
tonnes of tissue consumption, some 7% of the global paper and board consumption.
A small, but growing share! With our forecast of average global tissue consumption
at 5.4 kg per capita in 2018, we will be at a level of about 40 million tonnes
in the whole world. And to continue, a 10 kg per capita level in 2030 with an
estimated global population of 8 billion would add up to 80 million tonnes of
tissue consumption, more than 50 million tonnes from the current level, and
this is fully possible. So the tissue industry must probably be seen as the
most prosperous segment of the whole paper and board branch!
Esko Uutela works out of RISI's EU Consulting office close to Munich, Germany
and can be contacted by phone at +49-8151-29193 or by e-mail at euutela@risi.com.
9. FINE strengthens UAE with executives from Saudi
Arabia
FINE, the market leader in the Middle East's hygienic paper industry and part
of the Nuqul Group, has strengthened its UAE operations with the arrival of
two high-level officials from its operations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
(KSA). The transfer of expertise is part of the company's ongoing expansion
efforts in the UAE, which also includes the plan to add more warehousing facilities
and the development of a wider reaching distribution model for 2010 (see article
in Tissue World magazine March 2010).
Jihad Zeidan, Adviser to the Chief Area Officer and Chief Finance Controller,
and Issa M. Kayyal, Area Business Planning & Development Manager for the
Arabian Peninsula and Iran, have been brought in from KSA to streamline the
decision-making process and achieve greater economies of scale in the company's
UAE operations.
Peter Janho, Chief Area Officer for the Arabian Peninsula and Iran, said, "Making
Mr Zeidan and Mr Kayyal part of our Dubai operations is part of the Nuqul Group's
efforts to facilitate and improve decision making processes here in the UAE.
The move also demonstrates our strategy of transferring expertise and skills
from one branch to another to achieve best results from a management and operations
point of view.
Prior to being named Chief Finance Controller, Zeidan served as Consultant
to the Chief Area Officer for the Arabian Peninsula and Iran while concurrently
serving as General Manager for FINE KSA. A position held since 1976. He built
and established two factories in Riyadh and one in Jeddah. Under his management
the KSA operation thrived excellently and substantially to the Group's fundamental
strength and growth. While he was in Saudi Arabia, Zeidan supervised the establishment
of two factories of the group-one in Yemen and one in Sudan.
Issa Kayyal has held several senior managerial roles at Nuqul Group head Office
in Jordan since 1991 the year he started with the group. He was the Group Director
of studies and research before his appointment as deputy General Manager then
Operations director for FINE KSA, His current post at Area level came to crown
his experience and contribution to the Group. In Addition, he holds the general
manager post for the newly acquired Middle East paper Products Company in Kuwait.
10. Sanita appoints new Africa General Manager
As of 1 March 2010, Mohamad Wadi has been named Africa General Manager for
Sanita, a leading consumer disposables manufacturer in Halat, Lebanon.
Mohamad joined Napco Group in June 1998. In July 2002, he was promoted to
Napco Consumer Products Company General Manager in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. In
2007, he moved to National Paper Company Ltd in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
In his assignement, Mohamad will be in charge of implementing a new milestone
for Sanita's expansion in Africa. He will lead the development of Napco Consumer
Products Division activities throughout a three-year growth strategy.
11. Glow-in-the-Dark Toilet Roll available on
line in the UK
I Want One of Those, a web site specialising in sale of gadgets, has started
to market The Glow-in-the-Dark Toilet Roll. In daylight, this looks like any
other toilet roll but at night phosphorus in the paper makes it glow.
What’s the point? Well, it could be useful for campers or others who do not
have all-night lighting; or simply for those who do not want to turn on the
light and disturb a sleeping partner.
It comes at a cost. A roll of Glow-in-the-Dark toilet paper costs £4.99 from
I Want One of Those, roughly 10 times the price of a normal roll.
The roll was invented by South Bank University student Daniel Blackman, who
now works in product development for the gift and gadget distributor Thumbs
Up! Like all glow-in-the-dark products the glowing loo roll contains phosphors;
a phosphor being the substance that exhibits a sustained glow after exposure
to energized particles.
According to the I Want One of Those web site (www.iwantoneofthose.com), the
paper “needs light to charge itself up, so to speak, and the amount of light
it gets will determine how long it glows for. Why we're bothering to get technical
about it is a mystery, it's Glow In The Dark Loo Roll for heaven's sake. As
serious as a giraffe in flippers, though considerably more useful, and isn't
it reassuring to know that all those research grants aren't going unwasted?”
12. Masafi Kids Boutique Tissues Now In A Brand
New Design
Masafi, one of the leading FMCG brands in the Middle East and the leading
tissues brand, has announced the launch of a revamped non-perfumed kids’ boutique
tissue line in a visually-appealing design. In the new design, all Masafi cartoon
characters – Toto, Nosy, Jami, Octo, Flip and Hoofy – aim to excite and entertain
the kids, dramatizing intelligence theories in illustrative imagery for the
children. The new Masafi tissues’ design depicts various hypotheses of intelligence
– from bodily-kinesthetic, inter-personal to musical and verbal-linguistic,
among others.
In the first phase of the launch, two specific designs will be unveiled. The
first design coming in a bright red box pictures the Masafi character Jami as
visual-spatial depicting the careers best suited for children excelling in mathematics
and engineering. The second design, coming in a green box, illustrates Masafi
Nosy as a professor and explorer, targeting those children who love nature and
/or display verbal-linguistic abilities.
In his comments, Makram Haidar, Brand Manager of Masafi Tissues, said: “We
are confident that the new upgrade on our kids’ tissue range and steady product
additions will provide a further impetus to our market leadership in tissues.
The Masafi Kids Tissues are made from 100% virgin pulp to achieve a very low
grammage, which makes them extremely soft-yet-strong and wet resistant, with
high absorbent properties.”
13. Goldenrod names two new sales representatives
Goldenrod Corporation has announced the appointment of two new sales representative
firms, one each for the Pacific North-West and for Mexico.
TruGrit Agency of Portland, OR, USA, will represent the company in the Pacific
Northwest (states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and the province of British Columbia,
Canada). TruGrit is owned and operated by Wayne McGee, who is based in Portland
and assisted in sales efforts by Mike Judy, based in Bow, Washington. Both men
have over 15 years of industrial sales experience.
Flexi-vel SA de CV will represent Goldenrod throughout Mexico. Based near
Mexico City, Flexi-vel is owned and operated by Jose Velasco and family. The
agency has a seven-person sales force covering all of Mexico. The company has
over 25 years of experience in the paper, film & foil converting industry.
|