Iggesund Paperboard will invest GBP 108 million (EUR 123.2 million) to completely eliminate all fossil carbon emissions from the company’s paperboard mill at Workington.

The board of Holmen, the Swedish forest products group which owns Iggesund, has agreed to invest a total of GBP 108 million to switch the whole energy supply at its mill in Workington, UK, from fossil natural gas to biofuels. The company said in a press release on Monday that the planned biofuel plant is being dimensioned for a thermal output of 150 megawatt and will supply all the mill’s energy needs, both as electricity and as thermal energy in the form of steam.

Iggesund is already investing in a new recovery boiler at the company’s mill at Iggesund, Sweden. The boiler will mean that all production at the mill will be biofuel driven and the mill will also be self-sufficient in electricity. The investment at Workington means that the same approach will be used in the company’s UK facility.

“Our two paperboard mills will have a unique position in the market,” comments Björn Kvick, president of Iggesund Paperboard. “Whether a customer wants solid bleached board such as the Invercote we produce in Sweden or Incada, the folding box board we produce in the UK, we can offer a world-class product with regard to low fossil carbon emissions. And this is in addition to all the other benefits our products offer.”

Over the past decade, Iggesund has invested almost GBP 100 million in developing paperboard production at Workington. Each year the mill, which employs nearly 400 people, produces 200,000 tonnes of the folding box board Incada. (ci)