Kondopoga pulpmill announced the launch of the third papermaking machine which produces newsprint, BM7, in late March. More than 60% of mill’s products are exported. In addition, BM3 is also operating which produces packaging paper.

The company plans to work with three newsprint machines up to about May 20 and prepare another one for operation. If the mill manages to create adequate supply of wood before the spring muddy season, fourth machine could be started earlier.

Meanwhile, general director Vladimir Bibilov applied for early release from his post, he was later appointed chairman of the Board of Directors. Upon recommendation of the regional government, the Board of Directors has decided to appoint Dmitry Turkevich as new CEO for five years. Earlier, Mr. Turkevich headed one of the subsidiaries of ChTPZ metallurgical holding that manages its non-core assets.

Shortly after the appointment, Turkevich was interviewed by Respublika Karelia agency, where he stated that the situation at the enterprise is “complicated but not critical". He added that full capacity is achievable by the end of summer of 2013.

The muddy season will soon force to transport timber by rail, which will immediately increase production costs, Turkevich said. Meanwhile, the high cost of newsprint production remains the major problem of the company.

"For the full-course production working capital is needed, but the company, which is under external management, is certainly not able to get the credit, the Central Bank will not allow this", he said.

Dmitry Turkevich sees the creation of affiliates that can obtain loans, including those for purchase of raw materials, as one way to solve the problem. Recently the company established trading house Kondopoga, whose major tasks will be to procure raw materials and electricity for the mill.

Commenting on the managers’ denial to establish own logging, Mr.

Turkevich noted that the company uses only spruce pulpwood, so other products in this case will be sold, which creates another non-core, separate business.

"We don’t have fundamental problems with demand at the moment, portfolio of orders is established, and its geography is very wide, from Europe to South-East Asia and India. I think that for about seven years, demand for newsprint will be sufficient for stable operations of the mill. During this time, it is necessary to conduct serious modernization in order to convert it to pulp production", Turkevich concluded.

Bumprom (Russian association of pulp & paper companies) has created a new NGO, League of Wastepaper Processors. An article by its president Andrey Guryanov posted at the website (liga-pm.ru) explains the mission and goals of the League.

Presently, State Duma considers amendments to the federal law "On Production and Consumption Wastes". For the forest industry, the main outcome of these amendments will be abolition of licensing for collection and recycling. It is assumed that from 01 July 2014 all businesses of the industry will have to start working within the self-regulatory organization or cease operations.

League of Wastepaper Processors is going to become a self-regulating organization in this field, especially in the sector of wastepaper.

Several large pulp and paper companies have already joined in:

Kommunar mill, GOTEK, Perm Pulpmill Group, Kartontara, Naberezhnye Chelny board mill, SFT Group.

"The Western world has resolved this question. The state defined rules of the market, and the business exists organically and works within these rules. Returning to the question of draft law, we can say that it will create this set of rules for the whole industry of secondary processing in Russia”, Guryanov said.

About 45% of packaging cardboard for corrugated products is made from recycled paper today. Meanwhile, paper collection in Russia is still traditionally low. Potentially, it can be increased threefold, to the level of Western Europe. Most of the waste is collected in retail stores, while households are in fact the major source of wastepaper.

Price of wastepaper of MC-5B grade increased by 30% to 5,235 rubles per ton within one year. In addition, the industry is waiting for the launch of several major paper machines. The total market volume will soon reach 500,000 tons of containerboard, which will require 600,000 tons of wastepaper. Presently, paper collection throughout the country is hardly over 2 million tons.

According to Guryanov, collaboration is needed between the housing cooperatives, collectors of raw materials, waste processors and board makers.

Recently, UPM together with YUVI St. Petersburg (part of SFT Group engaged in collection and recycling of wastepaper) announced the launch of Paper Boom campaign for schools in St. Petersburg: for each ton of wastepaper collected by schools they will receive 2,000 rubles.

Last year, similar campaign raised more than 600 tons of wastepaper.

Prizes for school students included trip to Finnish UPM mill on the winter holidays, trips to YUVI Petersburg production base and souvenirs.

The Board of Eurasian Economic Commission decided to reduce temporarily import duties on certain types of paper and board from 15% to 5% of the customs value.

Since late April, import duties for most grades of coated paper and paperboard used in printing will be reduced until 19 January 2014, for multi-layer paper and paperboard with bleached layers - until 31 December 2015.

In March, Ilim Group launched production of coated paper at its site in Koryazhma which can produce 150 thousand tons of paper per year.

Similar production was planned by Investlesprom holding at its Kama pulpmill, but financial and technological problems forced the company to stop production, and in February 2013 the mill was sold.

Import duties for coated paper in the countries of the Customs Union (Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan) were increased to 15% in January 2013.

According to the participants of the publishing market who oppose the growth of import duties on paper, domestic producers of these products are still unable to supply the market.

Representatives of the pulp and paper, in contrast, argue that the reduction of duties will complicate the establishment of production and sales.

Management of Solombala pulpmill has decided to suspend production due to difficult financial situation of the mill. Unfavorable situation on sales markets and high degree of capacity wear have already made the company to stop production in late 2012.

Back then, Chairman Alexander Plastinin noted that demand is "below usual" and prices of the company's products on the global market remain weak, but there is a feeling that the bottom is reached and the situation “is not as dramatic as it was at the beginning of 2009, when demand was completely absent".

After a major overhaul of equipment in all manufacturing departments the company resumed production, but was not able to take it to normal production mode. "Given the shortage of working capital and difficulty of access to credit resources further financing of reparation and operations was not possible, so we decided to suspend production," the company says in a statement. According to the signed regulation, CHP plant #1, communications, department of biological treatment of industrial waste water, and fire service will continue to operate.

Currently 504 people are idled, while 712 remain at work.

The decision on the prospects of Solombala pulpmill will be taken later, after the management studies market prospects and financial situation and analyses conditions of the production equipment in detail.

Harold Bevis, Xerium CEO and President, has announced the creation of the new position of Executive Vice President of Global Human Resources and the filling of that position with the hiring of Mike Bly as the company’s new global leader of all human resources. Mr. Bly will be responsible for all of Xerium’s human resources – wage plans, benefit plans, insurance, union contracts, incentive plans, personal goals and objectives, human resource management systems, and career planning.

Harold Bevis said “Xerium has two objectives with this move. First, we want to instill stronger pay-for-performance regimens across all people and processes. Xerium has begun a multi-year journey to create an enterprise that sets and meets its commitments to shareholders, customers and employees. The markets that Xerium serves have fundamentally changed in the last few years and we must change our human resource approaches in order to compete and win in this environment.”

“Second, we need to establish more contemporary regimens within the human resource function itself. Many of our current habits are outdated and need to be brought up to contemporary standards. We have a big opportunity to leverage our scale better, simplify our network of activities and organize and group common areas of work. This organizational move will enable that to happen naturally. All human resource personnel will report to Mike with dotted line reporting to the regional Presidents.”

Mike Bly said, “I am excited to join Xerium at this time in its history and look forward to creating value for our employees, customers and investors. Simply stated, my job is to increase the output of our human resources and align our incentive structures around a pay-for-performance philosophy. That always involves consistent cost avoidance and reduction, metric and process improvement, simplification and automation. Cultural change and advancement is a key sustainable objective. I truly enjoy doing this, am experienced and have done it with Harold Bevis before. I understand his sense of urgency and his performance expectations. We are on the same page. I look forward to leading Xerium’s human resource function and resetting our agenda. It will be exciting and fun.”

Mike Bly Background Highlights

• 28 years of experience leading human resource and manufacturing functions, quality, supply chain, lean manufacturing, materials optimization and substitution, standardized manufacturing systems, per unit cost reduction, customer service, and M&A operational integrations.
• Formerly the Vice President of Human Resources for Mr. Bevis at Pliant Corporation. During that time, Pliant renegotiated all of its union contracts; achieved top-tier wage and benefit benchmarks; consolidated multiple plants and expanded multiple plants.
• Most recently, Vice President of Human Resources at Berry Plastics (acquired Pliant Corporation in December 2009) where he had responsibility for the Flexible Packaging Division’s human resource function.
• BS in Business Administration and is currently pursuing his MBA from Kaplan University.
• Mike achieved his Professional Human Resource (PHR) and Senior Professional Human Resource Certifications (SPHR) from the Human Resource Certification Institute.
• Married with 3 children.  

  Source: Xerium

Longview Fibre Paper and Packaging, Inc. (“Longview”) has announced that it will report its results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2013 on Tuesday, April 30 and that it will hold a conference call for holders of the Company’s 8% senior secured notes, qualified institutional buyers, as defined in Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933, securities analysts and market makers on Wednesday, May 1 at 11.00am ET.

Conference call details are available on Longview’s Investor Relations portal. Eligible parties that have not already registered for access to the portal may do so by contacting the Investor Relations Department at +1 360.575.5126 or by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Borregaard has developed new technology for the production of green chemicals and sugars based on biomass from wood and agricultural and forestry waste. On Tuesday 16 April the Norwegian Finance Minister Sigbjørn Johnsen will officially inaugurate the biorefinery demonstration plant at Borregaard’s production facility in Sarpsborg.

The demonstration plant, called Biorefinery Demo, started preliminary operations in summer 2012, followed by normal operations in the 1st quarter of 2013. The plant relies on Borregaard’s proprietary BALI technology and is a continuation of today’s biorefinery concept. The aim is cost-effective and sustainable production of lignin and bioethanol from new raw materials. BALI technology involves converting the cellulose fibres in biomass to sugars that can be used for the production of second generation bioethanol, while other components of the biomass (lignin) become advanced biochemicals. These products can replace petroleum-based alternatives, and the raw material cannot be used in food production.  

BALI technology consists of several processing steps and has given promising results in laboratory-scale testing. In the demonstration plant the process will be upscaled by a factor of 1000 times in order to test and develop the technology moving towards full-scale production. The plant has so far processed over 100 tons of biomass.  
"If we succeed with this project, we will be able to establish full-scale production of biochemicals with excellent climate accountability. Biorefinery Demo is a good example of how new technology can contribute to environmental solutions and also be commercially viable," says Borregaard CEO Per A. Sørlie.  

Construction of the demonstration plant has cost just under NOK 140 million, 58 million of which is investment funding from Innovation Norway's Environmental Technology Support Scheme. The BALI innovation project has also received NOK 19 million in funding from the Research Council of Norway and NOK 35 million from the EU's Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Development.  

Domtar is proud to be the Montreal Chamber Orchestra's Season Partner for the 2012-2013 Discovery Concert Series. We invite classical music lovers of all ages to join us.

Also on the program: Symphony no. 1 in C Majour, op 21 by L. van Beethoven, Couleurs by Louis Babin, Petite Suite by Claude Debussy and Symphony no.1 in E-flat Major, KV 16 by W. A. Mozart.

For further information or to schedule interviews with the concert conductor and/or soloist, interested individuals and media can contact Mona Awad, MCO Executive Director, at 514-871-1224 or at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. About the soloist Georde Gao is considered as one of the most exciting, innovative and respected erhu masters today. His performance on April 16 marks his first appearance with the Montreal Chamber Orchestra.

About the conductor Born in Montreal, Wanda Kaluzny started her musical studies with lessons in piano and organ. She began her conducting career at the age of 11 when she assumed the position of organist and choir director at the Holy Cross Parish in Montreal, a position she held for eight years. A year later at the age of twenty, she founded the Montreal Chamber Orchestra making her at the time, the youngest and only woman conductor of a professional Orchestra. Kaluzny's conducting studies include working with Stefan Stuligrosz in Poland and with Charles Bruck at the Pierre Monteux Memorial Foundation in the United States. She toured in Europe as Maestro Bruck's assistant and also guest conducted in North America and Europe. In April 1990, she was the first woman to guest conduct the Baden-Baden Symphony in Germany.

About the Montreal Chamber Orchestra The Montreal Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1974 by its Artistic Director and Conductor, Wanda Kaluzny. Under her leadership the MCO has earned a reputation for excellence and has achieved international recognition: Korean tour including a television broadcast (1990-91); tour of Southeastern U.S.A. (Nov 1990); tour in California invited by Columbia Artist Management (Mar 1992). The MCO was also honored to be the first Canadian Orchestra featured in two PBS programs produced by Vermont Public Television, which included the memorial concert entitled "Requiem for September 11". The Montreal Chamber Orchestra can be heard on the compact discs Suites for Strings and Cinématique.

High cancer rates in Thunder Bay, Ont. has both past and present mill workers concerned that there might be a connection to their paper plant.

As a result, they have enlisted an occupational health clinic to determine whether workers contracted cancer from the chemicals or processes at the northern Ontario paper mill. A joint committee was formed between management and labour representatives from the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP) to address the health and safety concerns of workers, who have shown a high risk of cancer.

Bob Hoffman, CEP’s representative on the health and safety committee, said he has been approached by both workers who fear that conditions at the mill contributed and could still be contributing to their cancer development.

“We noticed a high rate of cancer, especially around different processes at the mill,” explained Hoffman, who is also the local CEP chapter’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) co-ordinator. “[Workers] were concerned that some of the chemicals on that machine may have contributed to cancer … One chemical might be safe, but when you combine it with another chemical, what happens to that? We don’t know.”

Hoffman said that they have circulated a survey to begin to determine whether there is a connection. The survey asks past and present workers whether they had cancer, what type of cancer and if they can provide medical history. Hoffman added that in recent decades, the five major paper mills in Thunder Bay have cleaned up their processes.

“We’re trying to determine if there’s a correlation,” he went on to say. “Through this survey, if we do determine this has done anything wrong, or we do determine they are cancerous, we want those eliminated too. We could do an inventory of the possible carcinogens in the mill and get rid of them.”

After the preliminary data is collected from former and current employees, it will be sent to the Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers (OHCOW), where it will remain confidential.

Donna Campbell is the executive director at OHCOW’s Thunder Bay and Sudbury clinics. She said that they are in the very beginning stages of their data collection, but the latency period of cancer means many forms of the disease can take years to manifest in the body. Therefore, some of the processes at the mill may have already been cleaned up — but if not, that would need to be corrected.

“If there is no issue, then there is no point looking into anything right now. If it happens to be that we find there are cancers that are believed to be work-related, then we, through that joint committee, would work with them,” Campbell said. “Have the exposures been rectified? If not, then let’s look at what’s causing the cancer and let’s eliminate it at the source.”

The Thunder Bay paper mill is owned by Resolute Forest Products Inc., who is also a part of the joint-health and safety committee. Though a spokesperson from Resolute Forest Products could not be reached for a comment, Campbell said it is encouraging to see a company willingly pursue an investigative health and safety initiative.

“What this is all about is prevention. There may be that there could be some WSIB claims, but the goal is that those do not happen in the future and we work in a manner in order to ensure that this is done,” she said.

The surveys are due back to OHCOW on May 3.

Clearwater Paper Corporation (NYSE:CLW) has announced that Linda Massman, president and CEO, and John Hertz, senior vice president and CFO, will present at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Smid Cap Conference on May 8, 2013, at 10:15 a.m. EDT at Boston's Four Seasons Hotel. A live audio webcast of the presentation and accompanying slide materials will be accessible via Clearwater Paper's investor relations section of the company's website at  http://ir.clearwaterpaper.com/events.cfm. An audio replay of the webcast will be available at the site for 90 days.

Mr. Hertz will also attend the Oppenheimer 8^th Annual Industrial Growth Summit on May 14, 2013, at New York's InterContinental Barclay Hotel, along with Tom Colgrove, senior vice president and president of the consumer products division.

Source: Clearwater Paper Corporation