Laminated beam factory to be set up in Kemijärvi pulp mill building

State announces measures to promote employment affected by mill closures

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The Mikkeli-based Anaika Group, which designs and manufactures equipment for the mechanical forest industry, plans to set up a large factory to manufacture glued laminated wood beams in the factory building that is being vacated by Stora Enso, which recently announced that it was shutting down pulp production at the facility.
      The government has also agreed to provide assistance for the creation of new jobs in Finnish Lapland and the Kymenlaakso area in the southeast, which has been hit by massive shutdowns in the pulp and paper industry.
      Minister of Economic Affairs Mauri Pekkarinen (Centre) says that the state could provide between 30 and 35 per cent of the total costs of the project.
      Minister of Labour Tarja Cronberg (Green) says that the total amount of support remains open, and has no final sum attached to it.
      Pekkarinen said on Friday that more measures would be announced in the coming weeks to promote employment in the affected areas.
      The government believes that the state support, and the projects announced on Friday will save half of the 200 jobs there are being lost through the closure of the Stora Enso pulp mill in Kemijärvi.
     
Stora Enso said that it will sell part of the Kemijärvi factory to Anaika at a competitive price. Anaika will then build an engineering works and laminated timber factory on its own. Stora Enso has also offered Anaika a capital loan of EUR 7 million.
     
According to Anaika's Chairman of the Board Jaakko Kilpeläinen, who is also one of the owners, the company will invest EUR 24 million in the factory. The output capacity of EUR 100,000 is aimed mainly at export markets in Japan, Russia, and possibly Norway.
      For its raw material, the plant will need at least 150,000 cubic metres of wood - and preferably about 250,000, said Kilpeläinen on Friday, as Stora Enso, Anaika, and the industrial and network maintenance company Empower signed a letter of intent on the future use of the mills Stora Enso in Kemijärvi and in the Kymi Valley in the southeast that Stora Enso is shutting down.
      The laminated timber factory faces challenges, because there is a surplus of laminated wood in Finland, Europe, and overseas.
      Laminated timber beams are glued together out of smaller blocks, and are used as support structures for bridges and large indoor sports facilities, for instance.
      Anaika manufactures glued laminated timber beams at a factory in Pori. According to Kilpeläinen, the use of glued laminated timber beams is on the increase in construction, where it is easier for automated equipment to handle than is teh case with solid wood beams, because the laminated timber is made to precise measure.
     
At the Finnish Sawmills organisation, managing director Jukka-Pekka Ranta says he "would have expected more creative solutions", in light of the massive glut of the beams on the world market. The Japanese market is saturated, and large amounts of capacity has been built in Central Europe.
      Finland's largest manufacturer, Versowood, has kept its factory in Kotka shut for the past six months because of overproduction.
      Versowood's Keijo Kopra says that profitable exports to Japan are not possible, and the focus of exports is on the old markets in Europe. "If a new big factory appears with the help of state subsidies, it will be just like the way industry in East Germany was subsidised", Kopra says.
     
There were also questions why Stora Enso, which produces a glued laminated beams itself, did not want to invest in the factory in Kemijärvi.
      The reason given by Stora Enso was that the Kemijärvi decision will secure the availability of domestic wood fibre for the Veitsiluoto and Oulu pulp mills, which employ 2,000 people. The production of glued laminated wood beams yields wood chips, which Stora Enso can use in its pulp manufacture.
     
In the Kymi River Valley Stora Enso is handing over its maintenance activities to Empower, which is hiring 300 new employees, 200 of whom will come from the Anjalankoski and Kotka mills to work for Empower, while 100 will be hired from the Summa factory in Hamina, which is also closing.
      Stora Enso has announced redundancies of 740 people in Summa, Kotka, and Anjalankoski.
      Empower CEO Aappo Kontu believes that the maintenance personnel it gets from Stora Enso will be as good as the 65 it got when UPM closed its mill at Voikkaa in the area. The agreement will double Empower's industrial maintenance activities.
      Kontu says that the moves will require state support, as well as a "positive attitude toward the working methods of a service enterprise", if they are to succeed.
      Empower implements the labour contract of the metals industry, which is less lucrative for employees than the contract in the heavy paper industry.

More on this subject:
 Kemijärvi demonstrators boo and jeer at visiting Prime Minister Vanhanen

Previously in HS International Edition:
  Stora Enso closing Summa and Kemijärvi mills at brisk pace (18.1.2008)
  Vanhanen makes no new promises on Kemijärvi pulp mill (11.1.2008)
  Forestry centres: wood shortage no reason to close down Kemijärvi mill (9.1.2008)
  Protesters in Kemijärvi occupy pulp mill slated for closure (4.1.2008)
  Ruukki Group offers to buy Kemijärvi pulp mill (21.12.2007)

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