below please find a selection of the latest news from the world of pulp and paper.

ipw news

GF has signed an agreement to acquire VAG-Group, headquartered in Mannheim (Germany), a renowned global manufacturer and supplier of water utility valve solutions. The transaction is a next step toward GF’s vision of becoming the global leader in Flow Solutions and allows GF to leverage its market position in the infrastructure sector, especially in Europe and the Middle East.

Valmet is to deliver a disc filter refurbishment and reinstallation to Holmen Paper’s Braviken Paper Mill in Sweden. The delivery includes refurbishing and modifying an existing disc filter from the mill’s deinked pulp line (DIP) and reinstalling it in the mill’s thermomechanical pulp line (TMP). The refurbished disc filter will be equipped with Valmet Disc Filter Bags. The order was included in Valmet’s orders received of the first quarter 2025. The value of the order will not be disclosed.

The Navigator Company has approved the final investment decision of €30?million to convert its PM3 (Paper Machine No.?3), located at the integrated Pulp, Paper and Packaging complex in Setúbal. With this project, the Company reinforces its position in the European market for flexible packaging papers (kraft papers), establishing itself as one of the sector’s benchmark producers.

Fripa Papierfabrik Albert Friedrich has started up a TT NextPress shoe press supplied by Toscotec at their Miltenberg mill in Germany. The new shoe press has been operating efficiently for a few months and has fully achieved the targets of the rebuild. Resulting from R&D activities in cooperation with Voith, Toscotec’s new generation design of TT NextPress shoe press delivers superior dewatering performances and energy savings. It ensures a stable after-press dryness rate of more than 45% on a tissue line operating at a speed of 2,100 m/min, thereby guaranteeing a substantial energy consumption reduction, due to the fact that the Yankee and the hoods use significantly less thermal energy to complete the drying process.

Full-line supplier Voith has successfully completed the rebuild of the PM 11 at the heinzelpaper plant in Laakirchen, enabling the XcelLine paper machine to produce up to 470,000 tons of corrugated base paper per year. The conversion from graphic papers to corrugated base papers marks a significant milestone for the Austrian company, which looks back on a longstanding partnership with Voith.

In this energy-intensive industry, paper makers and their suppliers are under increasing pressure to be globally competitive while protecting the environment. In order to meet sustainable, ecological and resource-efficient requirements, emtec Electronic offers innovative measuring devices whose use enables informed decision-making, resulting in superior product quality, fewer rejects, reduced machine stops, and lower resource consumption.

The teams from Steinbeis Papier in Glückstadt and GAW technologies GmbH recently successfully commissioned a new starch processing plant. With an annual capacity of around 300,000 tons of recycled paper and 350 employees, Steinbeis Papier operates one of the most modern ecologically-integrated paper mills in the recycled paper industry and sets standards in sustainability. The product portfolio includes printing and copy papers, coated offset papers, as well as digital printing and label papers.

bio-fibre news

Södra has reached an agreement with Robert Jan de Waard and Ronald Rijswijk to acquire all shares in the Dutch company Smartt Timber B.V. Södra previously held partial ownership in Smartt, which has served as a successful sales channel for Södra Wood in the Netherlands and Belgium for many years. The Netherlands is a strategically important market for Södra, where the company has maintained a strong position for a long time. By the acquisition, Södra shows its long-term commitment to the market and elevates its business to the next level, enhancing the customer offer even further.

International technology group Andritz has received an order from the Chinese nonwovens company Alear Silk Road New Materials Co., Ltd. to deliver three complete neXline aXcess spunlace crosslapped lines for the production of nonwovens. This investment represents an important step in the company’s expansion and the development of the nonwovens industry in the Alear area of Xinjiang province.