The spend will aim to modernize the plant to cope with the growing demand for super-wide reels in the magazine sector, as well as increasing the proportion of biofuel used by the mill.

A new finishing line to produce jumbo reels such as those used on the new super-wide gravure presses, will be added to the mill's PM6, which produces magazine paper. The rewinder from that machine will replace an old one on PM7.

A new biofuel crusher will also be built to increase the volume of biofuels used by the mill to more than 70% by the end of 2006.
In Canada, a strike at UPM's Miramachi mill in New Brunswick has finally ended with a new five-year labour agreement after nine months without production.

The mill stopped producing paper in mid-December last year when around 700 workers walked out. They had been working until then under a previous labour agreement which expired on 30 June 2004.

Story by Josh Brooks