Metsä Board starts pre-engineering for paperboard capacity expansion

The company has started pre-engineering for increasing the annual production capacity of folding boxboard machine BM1 at the Husum mill (photo) in Sweden by approximately 200,000 tonnes. The pre-engineering phase includes also an evaluation of the mill port’s capacity for increased volumes of raw materials and finished goods.

The planned investment would further strengthen Husum BM1’s position as the biggest folding boxboard machine in Europe. The final investment decision is subject to the results of the pre-engineering phase. The readiness to make the final investment decision is expected to be achieved in the summer of 2021 and the ramp-up of the additional capacity would start in 2023.

“We have experienced good growth in our safe and sustainable folding boxboards in recent years. The high utilization rate of our current production capacity is a limiting factor for future growth. In order to continue profitable growth together with our customers, we are now looking at a potential capacity expansion. Husum as an integrated site would be an efficient platform for further development of Metsä Board’s paperboard business,” says Mika Joukio, CEO of Metsä Board.