INDIA – Finnish company Valmet has been awarded a new order to rebuild a board machine, named PM 1A, operated by Indian conglomerate company ITC.

This board machine will be installed at ITC’s Bhadrachalam mill in Telangana, India. The companies have not disclosed the value of this order.

As part of the new order, Valmet will support the modernization of ITC’s machine and provide an OptiFlo Fourdrinier headbox, an IQ Dryness Measurement, an IQ Induction Profiler, an IQ Steam Profiler and an OptiDry Coat.

Valmet India Region Asia Pacific director Varun Jain said: “Customer’s satisfaction with Valmet’s high-performing technology and timely project execution helped us to secure this order.

“The rebuild will improve production capacity and quality of the base board, which will result in excellent coated board quality.

“In 2018, Valmet carried out an extensive rebuild of the customer’s PM 1 that produces folding boxboard.”

In addition, Valmet will be responsible for modifying the forming section and rebuilding the press and coater sections of the machine.

The installation of PM 1A is expected to start in the second quarter of 2024.

Once rebuild work is complete, the PM 1A will be more capable of manufacturing high-quality folding boxboard, solid bleached board, cupboard, and artboard grades for its customer packages.

ITC’s divisional CEO Vadiraj Kulkarni added: “The goal of the PM 1A rebuild is to produce higher basis weight packaging grade for increasing the production to meet the future market demands.”

After the latest rebuilding effort, ITC’s machine will produce approximately 225,000tpa while the earlier rebuild from 2018 allowed the machine to produce 200,000tpa.

Salmisaari ‘A’ power plant order

Valmet has also announced that it will convert Helen Ltd’s coal-fired district heat boiler to bubbling fluidized bed (BFB) combustion to enable wood pellet firing at the Salmisaari ‘A’ power plant in Helsinki, Finland.

The conversion promotes the company’s goal of phasing out coal and at the same time strengthens the construction of a sustainable energy system.

The order is included in Valmet’s orders received during the second quarter of 2023. The converted boiler will be handed over to the customer in January 2025.

“Our goal is carbon-neutral energy production in 2030. Sustainable bioenergy is part of the overall solution to achieve our goal,” said Juhani Aaltonen, who is responsible for Helen’s sustainable energy solutions.

“The versatile production structure ensures reliability of heat supply even in freezing weather. This project is an important step for us on the way to carbon neutrality. We trust Valmet’s abilities to complete this demanding project on time.”

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