NORTH AMERICA – Billerud has promoted deputy president and general counsel for Billerud North America, Kevin Kuznicki, to the post of president of Billerud North America.
Kuznicki has been with Billerud since 2021 and is already a member of the company’s group management team.
“I am confident that Kevin Kuznicki, with his experience from a variety of positions and industries, is the right person to lead Billerud’s journey in the US going forward,” says Christoph Michalski, president and CEO at Billerud.
Commenting on his appointment, Kuznicki said: “I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to serve as President for Billerud North America and am optimistic about our future.
“I am honored to work with such a talented team across the company and look forward to continuing our journey and accomplishing great success together.”
In October last year, the company changed its name from BillerudKorsnäs to just Billerud, to cater to the international market. The new name is used throughout the rest of this text.
Meanwhile, in January this year, the company secured about US$200 million from the US state of Michigan for the planned conversion of Escanaba paper mill from fine paper to cartonboard production.
Following the acquisition of US pulp and fine paper manufacturer Verso Corporation in April 2022, Sweden’s Billerud announced it is evaluating a significant investment to transform the Escanaba fine paper mill into a primary fiber board mill and the company applied for investment support from the US-State of Michigan.
According to Billerud, the Michigan state government has recently approved an appropriation of up to $200m in funding to support Billerud’s investment plans.
“The maximum support of US$200 million assumes investments of approximately US$1 billion,” the company announced.
“The final amount of the funding will be relative to the company’s actual investment and is subject to execution of the necessary agreements between the Michigan Strategic Fund (MSF) and Billerud U.S. Production Holdings LLC,”
The Escanaba mill houses three paper machines with an annual capacity of 730,000 sh.t (660,000 metr.t) paper.
The mill produces graphic papers for commercial printing, media and marketing applications, and specialty papers used in label and converting applications.
Billerud plans to convert two fine paper machines to cartonboard production with one machine estimated to be converted by 2025 and the second machine by 2029.
The conversion would result in a total capacity of around 1.1 million t of folding boxboard (FBB) and coated unbleached kraft (CUK).
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