HELSINKI: China’s Shanying Paper will take a majority stake in a new Finnish company Boreal Bioref, securing financing for a planned950 million euro ($1.2 billion) pulp mill project in northern Finland, Boreal said on Friday.
The plant is scheduled to begin operating in 2020 with an increased annual capacity of around 500,000 tonnes of pulp, Boreal said.
Another Chinese company, CAMC Engineering, also has a stake in the project and most of the pulp will be shipped to China.
The Finnish forest industry is recovering from a long slump because a shift to online publishing hit demand for paper. Several paper plants had to close and thousands of jobs were axed.
The paper market continues to decline in Europe, but pulp made from northern spruce and pine has a brighter outlook as it is needed for tissue and packaging board – products seen growing on the back of Chinese demand.
Metsa Fiber last year started a new 1 billion euro pulp mill in central Finland, making the Finnish company the world’s largest seller of softwood pulp ahead of Sweden’s Sodra, Canada’sCanfor Corp and Mercer International.
