February 13, 2015
International technology Group Andritz has signed a letter of intent with Metsä Fibre to deliver key production technologies for a new bio-product pulp mill with an annual capacity of 1.3 million tonnes of pulp in Äänekoski, Finland. The order value for Andritz is over EUR 100 million. Start-up of the planned mill is scheduled for August 2017.
Andritz’s scope of supplies includes a complete wood processing plant with three debarking and chipping lines, three stacker-reclaimer chip handling systems, and bark handling. Each debarking line can process both softwood and hardwood, is designed for world record capacities (pine/spruce/birch: 470/350/270 m3 solid-over-bark per hour), and includes a de-icing conveyor, a debarking drum (5 x 48 meter), and the world’s biggest horizontally fed HHQ chipper, ensuring high capacity without compromising the chip quality.
Andritz will also be supplying a softwood and hardwood fiberline comprising a chip feeding system, a two-vessel continuous cooking plant, a new evaporation system for liquor extraction, and seven DD (Drum Displacer) washers for brownstock washing and bleaching. The softwood capacity of this line will be the highest in the world by far (3,900 tons per day).
Moreover, Andritz has signed to supply one black liquor evaporation plant and one recausticizing plat. The world’s most energy-efficient black liquor evaporation plant will have the highest capacity in Europe (1,650 tonnes/hour). The plant will have seven stages and concentrate black liquor to the very high dry solids content of 85% for efficient combustion in the recovery boiler. In addition, Andritz will also deliver chloride removal systems to enhance the chemical recovery process and to produce liquid methanol, which will be used as a biofuel source.
The recausticizing plant will be the largest in Europe (white liquor production of 16,000 m3/day), with two centrifuges for dregs, slaker-classifier, white liquor disc filter, and lime mud disc filter.
The new mill will be a next-generation bio-product pulp mill which can convert wood raw material into bio-materials and bio-energy in addition to high-quality pulp. It will not use any fossil-based fuels as all of the energy required will be generated from wood. The erection of the new mill is the largest investment in the Finnish forest industry ever.