Iggesund completes Workington upgrade

At the beginning of March the board machine was shut down for a rebuild in which its oldest part, the press section, was replaced with cutting-edge technology. The rebuild has increased the machine’s capacity by 20,000 annual tonnes from 200,000 up to 220,000, and also allows further quality improvements in the future.

Bengt Löfroth, technical strategy officer at Iggesund’s Workington Mill, said: ‘These are the immediate effects but in the longer term the new press section means we have a more advanced platform for our continued development work, which will be decisive for our future competitiveness.’

Prior to this year’s rebuild, Iggesund Paperboard had invested more than 200 million GBP (285 million USD) at the Workington Mill since the turn of the 21^st Century. Today Workington, where Incada is manufactured, is the only remaining paperboard mill using virgin fiber in the British Isles. In 2013 the mill switched overnight from using fossil natural gas to using biomass as its energy source. The change meant an instant reduction of the mill’s fossil carbon emissions by 190,000 tonnes a year, the equivalent of taking 65,000 cars off the road.

The new press section, combined with other measures implemented during the rebuild period, has also increased the mill’s energy efficiency. ‘We’re constantly looking for ways to become more efficient and save on the resources we use,’ said Löfroth. ‘What we’ve just done now means that we will reduce our energy consumption by almost 10 percent, which is an achievement in itself.’

Ulf Löfgren, managing director of the Workington Mill, commented: ‘Looking back, this was a superb job by both our own staff and the contractors involved. They worked night and day to give us the best possible results.’