Norske Skog's $130 million upgrade
From the Winter 2006 edition of Bush Telegraph Magazine.
The operating floor at Norske Skog, Albury. Photo courtesy Norke Skog
Norske Skog’s paper mill at Albury is now in the final phase of a $130 million upgrade to increase production capacity by more than 20 per cent by the end of the year.
The world’s largest manufacturer of newsprint, Norske Skog’s Albury mill employs 260 people.
The mill is one of Forests NSW major customers drawing upon the state’s valuable pine resource in the south west slopes and providing a reliable long term market for plantation thinnings.
A major element of the upgrade, the installation of a new press section on the paper machine, took place during a four week shutdown in February and March – the longest in the mill’s 24-year history.
In December last year, 120 containers of paper machine components arrived at the mill. These containers held about 3000 tonnes of state-of-the-art equipment shipped from four different locations around the world – Finland, Germany, Austria and Brazil.
Early in the shutdown period there were an additional 900 people on site across two shifts, many of them contractors from the Albury-Wodonga region.
Mill manager, Guy Mycroft, said the upgrade of the press section included the installation of a NipcoFlex Shoe Press, the latest technology available to enhance water extraction from the newsprint sheet.
He said that by December it was anticipated that the paper machine would be running at the new rate of 1600 metres a minute, up from the existing 1300 metres
a minute, to produce 265 000 tonnes of newsprint a year.
“Norske Skog Albury will now be a truly world-class newsprint manufacturing site,” Mr Mycroft said.
Public Affairs & Media, Albury
