International technology Group ANDRITZ has signed a contract to acquire NSC Group’s nonwoven division encompassing its affiliates Asselin-Thibeau (Elbeuf, France) and NSC Wuxi (Wuxi, China).

The acquired companies have approximately 200 employees and generate aggregate annual sales of about 40 MEUR. It was agreed not to disclose the purchase price; the contract is subject to approval by the relevant authorities and is expected to come in force during the fourth quarter of 2011.

NSC Nonwoven – now ANDRITZ Asselin-Thibeau – supplies systems for drylaid nonwoven production, mainly for textile and hygiene applications. The ANDRITZ PULP & PAPER business area is thus strengthening and complementing its product range for the nonwovens industry. In combination with the proven products and technologies of ANDRITZ Küsters and ANDRITZ Perfojet, ANDRITZ will be able to supply complete vertical system solutions for production of nonwovens to its customers.

Sonoco (NYSE: SON) announced today that its Trident division, which provides print tooling and global graphics management, has entered into a strategic alliance with Janoschka, a German-based global supplier of prepress solutions and tooling, to provide global consumer products goods companies and rotogravure printers with the widest coverage area available in the market.

According to Bob Carroll, Trident general manager, the two companies will share technologies and communication systems to ensure global consumer products goods companies with fast, effective and consistent management of all their rotogravure tooling requirements.

Based in Hull, England, Trident and its 450 associates operate global graphics management systems from nine locations across Europe, Asia and North America, and have print tooling capability in three locations in the United States and Canada.

Janoschka, headquartered in Kippenheim, Germany, has significant expertise in the prepress area and, with more than 1,400 employees plus an annual turnover of 115 million euros, is among the global market leaders in its sector. Specializing in the packaging, tobacco and décor market, Janoschka's client base includes renowned global printing companies and international brand owners. As a full-service prepress provider, Janoschka has a comprehensive product range, and based on wide-ranging technical know-how and long-standing experience, offers printing tools for gravure and flexo printing, embossing rollers, artwork and reproduction, color management, cylinder bases and more. The company, which was formed in 1976, and continues to be family run, is represented globally through 26 subsidiaries in 12 countries across Europe, Asia, and South and Central America. More information on the company is available at http://www.janoschka.com.

OMNOVA Solutions (NYSE:OMN) has announced that the Company will immediately suspend production at its Taicang, China plant and consolidate production into its Shanghai, China facility, pending future improvement in business conditions.  Both facilities make coated fabrics for OMNOVA's Decorative Products business segment.  Idling of the Taicang plant is in response to weak demand in the domestic and export furniture and automotive upholstery markets, which has created excess industry capacity in the region.

"By consolidating all coated fabrics manufacturing into our well-established and larger Shanghai facility, OMNOVA will improve our capacity utilization while continuing to provide quality products and timely service to our customers in China," said Kevin McMullen, OMNOVA Solutions' Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.  "Since the production processes at both facilities are largely redundant, the transition period will be very brief.  Importantly, as the local and export markets regain momentum, our Taicang site remains an attractive option to support future growth."

The Company emphasized that the suspension of production will occur in an orderly fashion, consistent with local labor requirements and appropriate safety and environmental practices.

The idling will affect approximately 95 employees at the Taicang plant.  Some employees will have the opportunity to transfer to the Company's Shanghai facility.  "We regret that market conditions make it necessary to take this action.  We certainly appreciate and want to thank our employees for their hard work and dedicated service to OMNOVA," McMullen said.    

Annual sales from products manufactured at the Taicang plant were approximately $8 million.  Cash costs to idle the facility are estimated at $0.5 million, which will be incurred during the fourth quarter of 2011.  Cost savings from idling the plant are forecasted to be $1.2 million in 2012.

SOURCE OMNOVA Solutions

Outokumpu and Tubinoxia, an Italian company controlled by Andrea Gatti, have signed the agreement on the joint venture for Outokumpu's tubular unit (OSTP). Tubinoxia will become a minority owner of OSTP with an option to become a majority owner in three years. The joint venture is expected to become effective from the beginning of October. Its purpose is to turn OSTP into a profitable entity and staying as an owner in the medium term enables Outokumpu to retain a substantial part of the expected value increase while still having the intention to divest the business.  

The main terms of the agreement are according to the letter of intent, which was announced in July. In the first phase Tubinoxia will own 36% of the shares in OSTP. Additionally, it has an option to acquire shares up to 51% in a three years' time period. Outokumpu has an option to redeem the shares initially acquired, at original value, if Tubinoxia will not acquire the majority. It is also agreed that Outokumpu will remain OSTP's main raw material supplier. The initial sale of shares will not result in any material financial impacts for Outokumpu. Outokumpu will initially be responsible for the financing of the business. Any future sale of shares would be executed at a price that is reflecting the then prevailing financial performance of the business.

Outokumpu will manage OSTP through a board of directors. The majority of the members including the chairman will be appointed by Outokumpu as long as Outokumpu is the majority shareholder. Tore Bäckström, Senior Vice President at Volvo Bus Corporation with responsibility for the operations in North and South America, has been appointed chairman of the board. Other members are Andrea Gatti, Outokumpu's CFO Esa Lager, and Christer Asp, a long-time OSTP executive who has held numerous positions, amongst others the responsibility for the units in Jakobstad in Finland and Saudi Arabia.  

Andrea Gatti will assume the position of the managing director for OSTP. He has more than 25-years' experience in the stainless steel industry as an entrepreneur and he was an Outokumpu executive during 2005-2009. Andrea Gatti has full trust and support from Outokumpu during the turn-around, which aims for a clear improvement in the performance of the business. Kalle Luoto from Outokumpu has been appointed the Chief Financial Officer of OSTP. The turnaround plan, which includes significant streamlining of the production structure, optimisation of the product portfolio and general cost reduction will be finalised during the coming weeks.

OSTP produces welded stainless steel process pipes and tubes as well as threaded and

butt weld fittings. It employs some 850 employees and has 10 production sites in Sweden, Finland, Saudi Arabia, Estonia and Canada. The Wildwood unit in Florida, USA, previously part of OSTP, will not be part of the joint venture, but will remain fully owned by Outokumpu.

The new facility is in line with the company's long-term strategy to invest in quality and delivery capabilities globally for Metso's valve customers

The new Valve Technology Center in Finland covers an area of 23,000 m2. The adjoining 12,300 m2 office building houses domestic sales, project management, research and development, global service development, training facilities as well as the management and administration of Metso's Flow Control business unit. The location is logistically ideal. It is close to the Port of Helsinki, airport and main highways. Energy efficiency meets the standards set by BREEAM, which is the world's foremost environmental assessment method and rating system for buildings. Both buildings have been built according to the latest Finnish regulations.

Metso's new Valve Technology Center in the Helsinki region, Finland, is officially opened today. The office building and purpose-built factory are home base to 800 automation professionals. Production is working in two shifts on a record pace.

"Our current deliveries have increased by half compared with the corresponding period in the previous year. Production is more than 2,500 valves monthly, and volumes will be further increased order to meet the growing global demand.'' tells Markku Simula, President of Flow Control business in Metso's Automation business line.

Metso develops valve services globally

The fastest growing markets of the technology center specialized in manufacturing of engineered industrial valves are Middle East and China. ''Especially companies in Middle East, Brazil and in China have recently invested at an accelerating pace to new production facilities" explains Simula. The customers include major global companies, such as Saudi Aramco, ExxonMobile, Petrobras and Stora Enso.

Building a new facility in Finland is in line with Metso's investment decisions of previous years to develop Metso's valve services globally. In 2010, Metso opened a state-of-the-art facility in Shanghai, China, and is currently expanding its valve production premises in the US. Metso also has high-class industrial valve facilities in Brazil and Germany.

"Metso is the leading valve solutions and services provider. We have a strong, established market position in the oil & gas, pulp & paper, refining and chemical/petrochemical industries. Our new production and testing facilities allow us to further improve our services to our customers with faster deliveries as well as with a wider product and application scope," Markku Simula summarizes.

Long-term strategy for developing operational capabilities

The investment decision for the Helsinki center was made in 2008 when the market situation looked uncertain. "Nevertheless, we went ahead with our plans in Finland and China. This is a strong message for our customers globally: We are in the business with a long-term strategy to continuously improve our products and services," Markku Simula emphasizes.

The decisions have proved to be excellent. The newly started facility in Finland reaches record level production, and the Shanghai center has been operating for more than one year also at record level, as it is located in the midst of the world's fastest growing valve market," Simula continues.

New facility enhances research and development

"Our customers are facing increasing operating pressures and more advanced applications. We have a long tradition to supply valves for tough conditions, so we are ready to meet this demand," Markku Simula ascertains. The new Helsinki facility further improves Metso's possibilities for product development. For example, there is a new flow laboratory for valve testing and a new expanded cryogenic testing facility for the LNG industry.

Metso is the leading supplier of control, on-off and emergency shutdown (ESD) valves and intelligent positioners and condition monitoring. "We just launched stainless steel versions of all our Smart products for safety and automated on/off use. Stainless steel products are aimed at the oil & gas market, which is very important for us. Clearly within these industries, there was room especially for safety products, because we have received very positive feedback from our customers so far," Simula says proudly.

Due to Metso's strong position in advanced valves technology, services are becoming a larger business for Metso. In addition to 31 service centers around the globe, a new service center will be opened in India within the next six months. As examples of the growth in services, the major Brazilian oil company Petrobras recently awarded Metso a service contract that covers the supply of spare parts and maintenance services for 11 refineries in Brazil.

Cascades officials inaugurated last week the addition of $3.7 million in new deinking equipment at the Cascades Fine Papers Group, Breakey Fibres mill. With this focus on producing high quality deinked kraft pulp, the investment will drive improvements in the quality of Cascades' fine papers.

Started in 2010, the project required the addition of several types of equipment, including a flotation cell, washers/thickeners, a disperser and a clarifier. It also involved the expansion of the building located in Breakeyville, Que. Cascades took its commitment to sustainable development to a new level by sourcing equipment from various plants.

As a result of this investment, pulp quality has greatly improved. Visible dirt and glue residue have each decreased 50%, while the whiteness has slightly increased.

"We consider this to be a very significant benefit, especially as the quality of raw materials -- waste paper to be recycled -- is declining more and more. We believe this investment will allow us to remain competitive in continuing to offer high quality recycled products," said Luc Langevin, president and COO of Cascades Specialty Products Group.

Since 1985, the Breakey Fibres mill has specialized in the manufacture of recycled deinked kraft pulp, mainly used in the production of Cascades' fine papers, such as the Rolland Enviro100 family of products.

source: pulpandpapercanada

Metso’s management will host a pre-silent Q&A session regularly prior to stepping into silent periods during 2011. The purpose of these sessions is to serve all financial community parties equally and increase understanding of earlier stated information by giving an opportunity to set questions to our management. No new information will be disclosed but the aim is to clarify information on our operations and operating environment. Therefore, we don’t intend to publish separate releases in connection with these events. Each event will be webcasted and an on-demand recording will be available on our website.

Pre-silent Q&A session before Q3/2011 result publication
will be held on Tuesday, October 4 at
3.00 p.m. EET (Helsinki),
1:00 p.m. GMT (London),
2:00 p.m. CET (Paris),
8:00 a.m. EDT (New York).

Metso’s President and CEO Matti Kähkönen and CFO Harri Nikunen will be present answering the questions. Marja Mäkinen, Investor Relations Manager will act as a moderator in the session.

The Q&A session can be participated through live webcast or conference call (please see the details below). Questions can be presented through both channels or by sending questions in advance via email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by Monday, October 3 by 12:00 p.m. EET (Helsinki).

Live webcast at www.metso.com/webcasts.

Conference call participants are requested to dial in few minutes prior to the start of the teleconference
• US: +1 334 323 6201
• Other countries: +44 (0)20 7162 0025 or +44 (0)20 7162 0077
• Access code: Metso

A replay of the conference call will be available for 14 days until October 18, 2011 on the following phone numbers:
• US: +1 888 365 0240
• Other countries: +44 (0)20 7031 4064
• Access code: 885 219

A transcript of the event will be available on our website at the latest on Thursday, October 6, 2011.

Welcome to our pre-silent Q&A session!

Metso Corporation

Sonoco Recycling, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sonoco (NYSE: SON) and one of the largest packaging recyclers in North America, today announced the launch of its Sonoco Sustainability Star Award program.

Created to recognize customer and Sonoco facilities for achieving significant milestones in landfill diversion and waste stream reduction, the program is comprised of three tiers:

• Gold recognizes facilities that have achieved 99% landfill diversion.
• Silver is awarded to facilities achieving 95% landfill diversion.
• Bronze recognizes facilities that have made significant waste reduction achievements, such as drastically reducing their waste streams or implementing a new composting system.

"With the increasing importance placed on sustainability by both Sonoco and our customers, we felt compelled to create a program that would recognize those facilities that take considerable steps to achieve higher levels of sustainability," said Jim Brown, vice president, Sonoco Recycling.

"To date, we've experienced great success in helping our customers - in targeted facilities - significantly reduce their landfill waste or become landfill free. We fully expect this program will encourage even more of our customers to strive for significant reductions in landfill waste. Additionally, by recognizing the efforts of our own facilities, the new Sonoco Sustainability Star Award program furthers Sonoco's goals of achieving landfill-free status at 10 percent of our plants by 2015."

Plants and customers who have achieved landfill-free status prior to the program's implementation will be recognized retroactively. Sonoco Sustainability Star Award winners to date include the following plants, all at Gold level:

The Sonoco Sustainability Award program will be administered through Sonoco Recycling and Sonoco Sustainability Solutions, LLC (S3). With a knowledge base informed by more than a century of experience as a global packaging leader and innovative recycler, S3 is uniquely qualified to find alternative recycling solutions for waste that was previously thought to be unrecyclable. Today, some of the world's most successful manufacturers and retailers rely on S3 to create and implement sustainable business solutions in their facilities.

A recycling leader with locations and expertise worldwide, Sonoco Recycling annually collects more than 3 million tons of old corrugated containers, various grades of paper, metals and plastics. In addition, the Company has experts who provide secure, reliable and innovative recycling solutions to residential and commercial customers. Currently, Sonoco Recycling operates three material recovery facilities (MRFs) serving more than 125 communities in which curbside-collected residential and commercial materials are processed. The Company also operates recycling programs which identify waste reduction opportunities that reduce operating expenses for many of the largest consumer product companies in the U.S.

Learn more about the Sonoco Sustainability Star Awards program at http://www.sonoco.com/productsservices/sonocorecyclinginc/sustainabilitystarawards.aspx.

The European Recovered Paper Council recognised the most innovative paper recycling projects last night when MEP Eija-Riitta KORHOLA (EPP, Finnland) presented the Third Annual European Paper Recycling Awards at the European Parliament in Brussels.

The event hosted by Eija-Riitta KORHOLA, MEP and Vice President of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee, and Ulrich Höke, ERPC chairman, saw three winners receive their prize and those highly commended receive a certificate of recognition.

The winners are:

Technology Improvement & R&D category: ‘ProjectCLEAN’ by Palwaste Recycling and ‘New Possibilities for Process Control’ by PTS

ProjectCLEAN is a highly innovative project that was set up with one purpose in mind: to develop a recycling solution for an omnipresent waste stream that went unrecycled: so-called “plastic-aluminium laminates”. Stora Enso Barcelona and the engineering firm Alucha noticed the recycling problem of the laminates early on. In 2005 they set up a joint company “PALWaste Recycling” which launched ProjectCLEAN. Goal of the project: To use jointly developed technology and build and operate Europe’s 1st facility that can fully recycle beverage cartons.

The “New Possibilities for Process Control by NIR Monitoring of Recovered Paper” project used for the first time an online NIR measurement system to determine several important qualitative and quantitative parameters of recovered paper in a paper mill. Online measurements allowed the observation of the real changes in composition of recovered paper as it was not possible before. The measurements are done over the whole conveyor belt with a spatial resolution of 4 cm allowing to evaluate the complete recovered paper stream and not only random samples like other manual and visual methods.

The results of the research project can be used to bring about improved consistency and economy of the overall process in the deinking plant andultimately enhanced product quality.

Information & Education category: ‘Be Part of Birmingham’s Paper Chain’, Smurfit Kappa

This project is the result of a close working partnership between Smurfit Kappa Recycling (SKR) and Birmingham City Council (BCC) since 1993 which operates on a rolling contract basis. Since the partnership between Smurfit Kappa Recycling and Birmingham City Council was first formed in 1993 the amount of paper recovered from the waste stream for recycling has increased from 750 tonnes to around 40,000 tonnes per year today.

The project is innovative because the partnership not only works on a day to day basis, but also works to provide information jointly to customers. The ‘Be part of Birmingham’s Paper Chain’ campaign was a partnership project between WRAP (Waste and Recycling Action Programme), BCC and SKR.

BCC reached the target recycling rate of 32% in 2010/11. Birmingham also collected 73.5 kg of paper per household compared to the average of 53.62 kg per household in other cities in the UK. Since October 2010, the Recycling Liaison Officer has visited 80 site schools and 27 community groups. This lead to increased recycling in these schools and 13 schools started to recycle for the first time.

In addition to these winners several projects were highly commended:

      Technical Improvement & R&D category

• Antalis McNaughton Ltd
• Deutsche Post DHL
• Comieco
• Green Press Partnership

Information & Education category

• Van Gansewinkel Group
• Fujifilm Europe GmbH
• Vertaris
• Goma-Camps Group
• Xerox Corporation.

“New Recycling activities and projects are started on a daily basis in Europe and the European Paper Recycling Awards acknowledge the best of them. At the same time it allows us to maintain a repository of good ideas that can be copied and adapted in other countries, companies or regions.” explained Ulrich Höke, Chairman of the ERPC.

“The entrants in this year’s competition show that there is a huge wealth of talent working in Europe to improve paper recycling and to bring us closer to a recycling society. We were very impressed by the quality of all the entrants and congratulate the winners on their achievements. We also hope that those who were not so lucky in this year’s competition will continue to develop their activities and promote paper as a wonderfully useful and sustainable product,” he concluded.

Africa’s largest packaging manufacturer, Nampak, formally opened its R800-million expansion project at the group’s corrugated paper mill in Rosslyn, Pretoria. The opening was attended by a number of local dignitaries, including Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Gwen Ramokgopa, Nampak Chairman, Mr Tito Mboweni, and Executive Mayor of Tshwane, Mr Kgosientso Ramokgopa, who jointly cut the ribbon and officially opened the plant.

Built on a green field site adjacent to the existing paper mill, the new paper mill is one of Nampak’s largest capital projects to date. The objective of the expansion is to make the Nampak Corrugated business self-sufficient in terms of its supply of waste-based packaging grades of paper.

According to Nampak Corrugated’s Managing Director, Christiaan Burmeister, this higher level of vertical integration is consistent with international trends, as more and more corrugated players are producing their own paper requirements. Christiaan added that doing so offers multiple benefits, including improved supply chain management and lower raw material input costs.

In his opening speech, Christiaan added that with the upgrades to the existing Rosslyn infrastructure, Nampak Corrugated is committed to supplying world-class corrugated boxes to the industry, and will be pushing sustainability hard in this sector.

Christiaan said that at full capacity, the new paper mill will enable Nampak to process over 150 000 t of waste paper per annum, producing more than 140 000 t of paper for use in corrugated boxes and containers. “This enables us to not only put corrugated boxes back into the industry, but back into the economy,” he concluded.

Executive Mayor of Tshwane, Mr Kgosientso Ramokgopa, applauded the project, saying that it is one that will move Tshwane forward. He added that the new plant will not only drive sustainability, but is job absorbing too, as it creates direct employment at the site as well as jobs in the informal sector for those who collect the extra waste paper required by the new mill.

The Nampak Group is already a significant contributor to recycling in South Africa, and the new mill strengthens this position through increased capacity of waste-paper collection and recycling.