Having announced back in mid-February that active preparations for the construction of another paper mill were underway, Progroup has now decided on its location. They will be constructing the new state-of-the-art paper mill and installation of PM3 (9.2 metre width) in the town of Sandersdorf-Brehna near Bitterfeld, Germany. As things stand today, construction work is scheduled to commence in the first quarter of 2019 and the current plan is for the project to be completed in the second half of 2020. Following the announcement of the construction of up to four more corrugated sheet feeders by 2021 and the decision on the location for the third paper mill, Progroup is now embarking on the intensive implementation phase for its Two Twentyfive strategy period.
In addition to the physical proximity to the sites of Progroup’s other two paper mills (PM1 in Burg and PM2 in Eisenhüttenstadt), it was the excellent transport links and the high level of industrial expertise in the region in particular that swayed the decision in favour of this new mill location. With a level of investment totalling €375 million for constructing the paper machine, approx. 140 highly skilled direct jobs and approx. 350 indirect jobs will be created in the region, depending on the final technical configuration of the machine. As well as the construction of the mill, in a second stage the overall project also envisages building a dedicated RDF power plant which will then supply the new paper machine with steam and electricity in an energy-efficient way.
The production facilities will be implemented on a ‘greenfield’ construction site covering an area of approx. 450,000 square metres. Following the principles of the Power of Innovation, Progroup is investing in eco-conscious, state-of-the-art facilities and is once again living up to its Green Hightech philosophy. Production is currently scheduled to start as early as the second half of 2020. The new PM3 will produce corrugating medium and testliner within the grammage range of from 80 to 150 gsm. After the initial start-up phase, the plant will have an annual capacity of 750,000 tonnes of containerboard. Together with the two paper mills in Burg and Eisenhüttenstadt, the total annual production capacity of containerboard will then increase from 1,100,000 tonnes to around 1,850,000 tonnes.
