The Finnish paper and board manufacturer Stora Enso has announced that it will permanently close its Sunila pulp mill and Tolkkinen sawmill, as well as its uncoated fine paper machine at its Imatra mill.

Provisional plans are also in place to close the Verkaus newsprint mills, and attempts to sell the Kotka mills will also be resumed in early 2010. The closures, including the sale of the Kotka Mill, will affect a total of 1,605 Stora Enso employees.
Stora Enso’s packaging board division has escaped a round of mill closures resulting from the deteriorating operating environment. The targeted annual operating profit improvement through planned closure is estimated to be in the range of EUR 140 million to EUR 160 million, depending of the outcome of the provisional planned closure of Varkaus mills and the divestment of Kotka mills from the beginning of 2011 onwards.
“We have tried to move as fast as possible, but it has not been fast enough,” said chief executive Jouko Karvinen of the cost-saving programme implemented two years ago. “As we cannot change this operating environment, we will instead continue to change Stora Enso so we can operate in the new environment and ensure a brighter future for the group,” he added. The news followed the publication of Stora Enso’s first quarter results in July, which reported a pre-tax profit, excluding non-recurring items, of EUR 47.2 million on sales of EUR 2.2 billion.
Stora Enso operates 26 packaging board mills across the world. This July M-real increased its folding-boxboard prices by GBP 80 per tonne in the UK, following in the footsteps of Iggesund Paperboard. (pi)