Arneburg pulp mill successfully expanded
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In the spring and summer of 2021, the Arneburg pulp mill was at a standstill. Mercer Stendal took advantage of the general repair to carry out extensive extensions and modernisations to the production facilities. Except for some remaining work, these have now been completed and, in total, have resulted in the mill increasing its annual production capacity to 740,000 tonnes, while still being more environmentally friendly.
"It was important for us to combine the increase in capacity and efficiency of our production facilities with an increase in immission protection," says Dr Martin Zenker. "The latest state of the art in technical development was installed in the expansion of our plants. This also brings added value to our customers, as the pulp quality is even more consistent and can be further improved," the mill manager continues.
Zenker is correspondingly positive about the future: "The measures implemented enable us to ensure compliance with the latest strict German environmental regulations. In addition, the basis has been laid for developing projects to realise a carbon-free economy as part of the energy transition."
Many of the measures were carried out by Valmet, which was already instrumental in the construction of the pulp mill in 2004. "Some of the expansions are the first of their kind in the pulp industry," explains sales manager Bernhard Trunk.
"The expansion brought a lot of challenges that normally no project manager can imagine," reports Jan-Peter Daum, who manages such large-scale projects at Mercer Stendal. "In particular, these were the corona conditions. The Valmet and Mercer project teams nevertheless managed to keep to the planned schedule. The commissioning of the plants was carried out according to the original plan." However, the measures are not yet fully completed. "This year, the remaining, rather smaller works will be implemented," Daum continues.
Since the start of the expansion project, Mercer employees have worked more than 200,000 hours with the support of outside contractors. There have been no significant accidents in the process, underlining Mercer's commitment to a high level of occupational safety.
All in all, the impact of the entire expansion and modernisation, which represented an investment of 45 million euros, played a significant role in setting a new production record, which was achieved in October 2021. In Mercer Stendal's 219th month of production, over 62,000 tonnes of pulp were produced for the first time since start-up in 2004.
However, the completion of the work in 2022 by no means means means standstill at the Arneburg mill. In accordance with legal requirements, the next general overhaul is already scheduled for autumn, during which modernisations will again be carried out so that Mercer Stendal will continue to make its successful contribution to the energy turnaround.
