Head of Karelia and President of Segezha Group has signed a Roadmap to implement the Segezha West Project

The head of Republic of Karelia Artur Parfenchikov and President and Chairman of the Board of Segezha Group (part of Sistema JSFC) Mikhail Shamolin signed a roadmap as part of the Cooperation Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Karelia and the Managing Company Segezha Group Ltd to implement the planned investment project Segezha West – modernization of JSC Segezhsky PPM with expanded capacities for sack paper production.

The document brought together the earlier achieved agreements between the Government of the Republic and the Company on joint work to develop the pulp-and-paper mill, timber processing production facilities and intensive forest management methods.

Segezha West, the program for further modernization of Segezha PPM presupposes creation of conditions to increase the capacities of the enterprise to 850,000 tons of product a year, and expansion of the product portfolio. The planned amount of investments has been assessed at some RUB 55 billion. As a result of a series of renovations of industrial equipment and construction of new facilities at SPPM, the enterprise will produce not only non-bleached paper but also craft paper and bleached hardwood and softwood pulp.

According to the Roadmap, the Parties will cooperate not only on renovation of SPPM; their other joint projects will include creation of a new intensive forest management program on the territory of the Republic, on the forest land plots leased to Segezha Group. The project presupposes taking aerial photos of forest sections of Belomorskoe, Kemskoe, Kalevalskoe, and Louhskoe central forest management sections for analysis and preparation of a conclusion on forest management, as well as the development of forest infrastructure and forest transport in the part of building forest roadways, maintenance and repair of municipal and regional roads. The regional authorities and the company will also cooperate on the initiatives submitted to the Government of the Russian Federation to increase the permitted weight of vehicle trains transporting timber cargoes to 55 tons with axis loads of up to 10 tons, and expansion of the Segezha railway transport hub.

According to Mikhail Shamolin, President of Segezha Group, the modernization project of Segezhsky PPM is large in scale and will result in creation of a totally different enterprise, a biotechnological complex of the new generation. “We need the support of the region, first and foremost in the area of wood supply and guarantees of competitive prices for the raw materials at the gate of the enterprise”, Mikhail Shamolin said. “It is also important to build hard-surface forest roads and more intensive forest use, the creation of a public-private partnership and assistance in training qualified staff.”

“We are working as partners, and we have a clear goal for joint concrete results in the interests of the republic, the state and the investment business. Today we have approved a series of events that will allow SPPM to reach competitive production cost figures, considerably lower than that of leading foreign enterprises in the industry. We consider this project one of the strategic priorities for the Republic”, head of the Republic of Karelia Artur Parfenchikov said.

The parties have specifically stressed the comprehensive nature of dealing with environmental problems during the course of the project. The new enterprise will include a new setup for continuous pulping of bleached hardwood and softwood pulp, a cutting-edge effective complex for regeneration of chemicals, a new state-of-the-art timber preparation section, and a unit for collection, transportation and thermal decontamination of gases.

“We will set up aspiration devices at all enterprise sections, first and foremost on soda regeneration boilers, where black lye is combusted, the reason for the characteristic smell emanating from the PPM. As a result of this renovation project, we will be able to guarantee no harmful emissions and or hazardous waste”, Mikhail Shamolin concluded.