Palm to install new high-volume board line in Germany

Finland-based Valmet Oyj says it will supply a containerboard making line, to be known as paper machine 5 (PM 5), to Papierfabrik Palm at its mill in Aalen-Neukochen, Germany.

The new 750,000 metric tons-per-year board machine will replace three existing smaller machines that combined have 350,000 metric tons of annual capacity. The new system will be designed to produce what Valmet calls lightweight and high-quality recycled-content fluting and testliner grades. The start-up of PM5 is scheduled for 2021.

On its website, Palm lists the Aalan-Neukochen site as currently having three paper machines: PM2, which can produce 90,000 metric tons per year of newsprint; PM4, which can produce up to 110,000 metric tons per year of packaging grades; and the existing PM5, which can produce up to 150,000 metric tons per year of packaging grades.

The value of the order will not be disclosed by Valmet, although the equipment maker says, “The total value of an order of this type and scope is typically around €150 million to €200 million ($167 million to $223 million).”

“We wanted to make a competitive investment for the next 50 years and aimed for a very wide and high-capacity containerboard machine to be ready for the future changes,” says Dr. Wolfgang Palm, CEO of the Germany-based paper and board producer. “Valmet was selected because of their high-level and differentiating technology for lightweight grades. The concept was verified at the pilot trials.”

Comments Jari Vähäpesola, paper business line president of Valmet, “Palm PM 5 will be the largest containerboard machine in the world. We offered Palm an outstanding combination of high-end technology, comprehensive selection of service, automation and industrial internet. I’m pleased to say that Palm and Valmet have been cooperating for decades, and hopefully this good relationship will continue over the coming decades.”

Palm describes itself as Germany’s largest family-owned paper industry business. The paper division of the Palm Group has five paper mills while its packaging division consists of 26 corrugated board downstream plants. Palm Recycling purchases raw materials for the group, which makes all of its paper and corrugated board from 100 percent recycled paper. The plant in Aalen-Neukochen is the head office of both the Palm Group and Papierfabrik Palm and is in the city where the group was founded.

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Valmet’s PM 5 system will include a high-speed containerboard making line “from broke collection to reel and winder,” says the firm. The 11.7-meter-wide (38.3 feet) board machine will produce recycled-content fluting and testliner grades at a rate of 2,000 meters per minute (6,560 feet per minute) at an annual capacity of 750,000 metric tons.