Turkish paper and corrugated packaging company Eren is progressing with its redevelopment at the Shotton Paper Mill located in Flintshire, North Wales, into an advanced, state-of-the-art containerboard and tissue manufacturing facility. The Shotton Mill redevelopment includes the transformation of the existing main site, expansion into the adjacent vacant land present north of the main site, and development of a combined heat and power (CHP) plant.
The redevelopment project is estimated to involve an investment of £600m. The Swedish Export Credit Agency (EKN) considered offering a financial guarantee to support the funding of equipment for the expansion and operation of Shotton Mill in May 2023. Eren Paper acquired the Shotton newsprint paper mill site and related assets from UPM in September 2021.
The project is being carried out in two phases. The first phase is scheduled to be operational on 148 acres of land in 2024, creating 660 new jobs. The site is also accessible to ports and has an existing private, clean water supply and infrastructure for renewable energy production and paper recycling.
The 100,000 sqm main site of the mill is being redeveloped with new buildings for the integration of two principal process units equipped with cardboard paper machines and corrugating machines.
The paper machine will be one of the UK’s largest single machines with a capacity to produce 750,000 tonnes of containerboard a year. Additional buildings for fibre storage tanks, auxiliary facilities, a new effluent treatment facility with anaerobic digestion and biogas capture technology, warehouses, dispatch infrastructure, chemicals, truck loading, conversion, administrative offices and reel storage will also be developed, while the existing buildings, including the materials recycling facility and a biomass plant, will be retained.
The corrugating facility will have a production capacity of 110,000 tonnes per year of corrugated boxes. The vacant land adjacent to the main site will be developed into a 210,000 tonne per annum tissue production and converting facility.
The new complex, including new paper mill, containerboard building, warehouse, dispatch infrastructure, chemical building, CHP boiler unit, an effluent treatment plant and old corrugated containers, will be developed in the first phase of redevelopment, while the corrugated packaging facility and tissue production facility will be developed in the subsequent phase.
The new containerboard line (PM3) will use 100% recycled paper to produce high-quality testliner and fluting grades. The paper will be manufactured as 10.1m wide reels using 100% recycled paper and board (OCC).
