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The PM40 closed Friday, 15 September 2023, at 5073.

Get the latest PM40 updates by listening to the weekly Nips show and the PM40 Daily Show on Pulp & Paper Radio International.

In this issue of Disconnected Comparisons, we evaluate Glatfelter and PCA.

The PM40 closed 15 September 2023 up 4.9% from the 16 September 2022 level.

Reported insider trading since the last issue of PaperMoney.

Ladies and gentlemen, the first class of inductees to the Paper Industry International Hall of Fame in Appleton, Wisconsin was inducted more than two decades ago in 1995, and today, more than 150 papermaking innovators and legends have been enshrined. This month, we profile Erling Sven Lorentzen, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2012.

I can't hear you!

Indonesian PT Riau Andalan Pulp & Paper purchased the Dynamic Drainage Analyzer 5 (DDA 5) from Swedish PulpEye.

Metsä Tissue is investing in world-leading environmental and operational performance in tissue paper production by modernizing and expanding its paper mill in Mariestad, Sweden. AFRY has been involved in the pre-project and is now a selected partner to deliver several services in the construction phase.

Valmet's delivery will enhance operational efficiency and improve the end-product quality at the customer's Jiangxi mill producing glassine paper.

The delivery is scheduled for January 2025.

DS Smith PLC, the leading global sustainable fiber-based packaging company and Coca-Cola HBC Austria have collaborated to replace plastic handles for 1.5 liter PET soft drink multi-packs with cardboard based outer packaging. This new plastic replacement solution will be delivered to supermarkets in Austria as of September 2023.

Company expands line of recyclable mailers to meet needs of e-commerce companies.

Molpus has expanded the Molpus Woodlands Group Annual Scholarship Program to help bring further diversity to the forestry management profession. Through a partnership with five new universities, the expansion is increasing Molpus's program to ten universities located throughout the timber growing regions of the U.S.

Mondi and Robopac team up to offer a paper stretch wrapping solution, substituting unnecessary plastic.

Coca-Cola HBC Austria and Mondi partnered to create an innovative paper sleeve that tightly wraps and secures bottle bundles during transit.

RRD's new single-pass digital press installation can reduce time-to-market by 25%, maximize color spectrum, and support sustainability efforts on retail displays, signage and more.

Tetra Pak is pleased to announce the first Custom Printing collaboration.

A wide range of UPM Specialty Papers' label papers have been certified as industrially and home compostable, helping brand owners and label converters meet their target of prioritizing materials with a sustainable end of life.

As part of this collaboration design concepts have been developed that have the potential to disrupt traditional product concepts and trigger transformative designs enable sufficiency, recyclability and reuse as well as the substitution of fossil materials.

The 127,000 sq. ft. millwork facility is scheduled to be complete in the fourth quarter of 2023 and is expected to begin production shortly after the first of the year.

Canfor Corporation will be investing approximately $200 million to build a new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Houston, British Columbia, Canada. This low cost, high efficiency facility will have an annual production capacity of approximately 350 million board feet.

Governor Andy Beshear joined officials with Pratt Industries in Henderson to officially open the company's new $500M paper mill and box plant, which will create jobs across two facilities.

The Lenzing Group has made significant technical improvements to its Purwakarta site (PT. South Pacific Viscose) in Indonesia. Lenzing has invested more than Euro 100 million since 2021 to convert existing production capacity to specialty viscose. With the imminent completion of the investment, Lenzing is in a better position to serve the strongly growing demand for specialty fibers.

Robotic equipment cleans recovery boiler spouts without manual intervention.

The corrugated packaging company will invest $500 million in Pennsylvania to create hundreds of jobs across the Commonwealth over the next ten years.

Pratt Industries, a private company owned by an Australian billionaire, announced Thursday that it would build the plant in Warner Robins, with plans to begin turning out boxes by late 2024.

Pratt Industries Inc. has pledged to create more than 200 new jobs while investing $32 million into a new Dayton-area facility.

To meet the growing demand in the U.S., the Sofidel tissue paper group, well-known for its Regina, Nicky and customer brands, is further strengthening its production capacity with a $185 million investment in its integrated plant in Circleville, Ohio.

Prinzhorn Group's Hamburger Recycling has signed a contract covering the takeover of the Italian recycling company Eurocart, together with its affiliated company Berica Recuperi. The recovered paper specialist located in Vicenza operates with three logistic centers, 130 employees and has the capacity to collect and process 239,000 tons of paper for recycling and other secondary raw materials annually.

Hong Kong-based tissue and diaper maker Vinda International held management presentations in the last week for potential buyers of a majority stake owned by Sweden's Essity, three people with knowledge of the matter said.

The transaction represents the 70th acquisition for Imperial Dade under the leadership of Robert and Jason Tillis, Chairman and CEO of Imperial Dade, respectively. Financial terms of the private transaction were not disclosed.

Smurfit Kappa and WestRock to combine, creating Smurfit WestRock, a global leader in sustainable packaging with unparalleled scale, quality, product and geographic diversity.

The purchase price for this acquisition was $330 million.

Etteplan and Stora Enso have made an agreement on Stora Enso's Sunila pulp mill Technology and Investments department transfer to Etteplan. The agreement covers the transfer of 10 Stora Enso project managers and engineers to Etteplan as of September 18, 2023. The transfer is related to Stora Enso's decision to close the production of pulp at Sunila Mill in Kotka, Finland by the end of 2023.

Niklas Beyes is appointed CFO and a member of Ahlstrom's Executive Management Team as of September 15, 2023. Current CFO Jorn P. Jensen will leave Ahlstrom on September 15 to pursue new opportunities outside the company.

Domtar Corporation, a part of the Paper Excellence Group, announced it will indefinitely idle the pulp and paper operations at its Espanola, Ontario, facility for an expected period greater than one year. The decision will result in a curtailment of Domtar's annual pulp production by approximately 280,000 air-dried metric tons of northern bleached softwood kraft pulp and approximately 69,000 tons of specialty paper. The announcement will affect approximately 450 employees.

Georgia-Pacific said that approximately 525 jobs will be directly impacted by the decision to close the mill.

New site investment will propel consumer packaging made from recycled content in support of healthier planet.

International Paper announced that Chairman and CEO Mark Sutton has requested that the Board of Directors move forward with the next phase of the company's CEO succession plan. This phase in the process will include a comprehensive evaluation of internal and external candidates for Sutton's successor. Sutton will continue in his role as chairman and CEO until his successor is in place.

Ms. Khanna is currently Executive Vice President and Chief Business Leader, Personal Health, for Royal Philips, a health technology company, a position she has held since 2020, while serving on the company's Executive Committee.

Metsä Group's Kemi mills are getting ready for a maintenance and connection shutdown to prepare for the deployment of the largest ever investment of the forest industry in Finland - the new bioproduct mill and paperboard mill expansion in Kemi.

He will be responsible for operating and developing the family company's production sites as well as supply chain management.

With a solid action plan and ambitious targets to reduce its carbon footprint by 2030.

The ND Paper mill, located along the Penobscot River in Old Town, was recently fined a sum of $101,400. It was put in place by the Department of Environmental Protection for a 2020 chemical spill which resulted in vast environmental damages.

SCA has been nominated for the German National Sustainability Award, Deutscher Nachhaltigkeitspreis, which is presented in collaboration with the German federal government and several prominent organizations. The award ceremony will take place on Thursday, November 23, 2023, in Düsseldorf.

The delivery will take place in March 2024.

A paper mill near Escanaba will be temporarily laying off an unknown number of employees during a planned maintenance outage beginning the first week of October. Billerud said it is opting to idle its Escanaba Mill's paper machines during this outage due to a low demand for paper and inventory destocking. The company said it intends to take an additional week of market-related downtime following the maintenance to balance production with customer needs.

The return to work will be gradual, starting September 18. Workers have been on strike since July 4. The company imposed this measure after a third production stoppage by employees.

Fire crews across Northern Michigan were responding to a major fire near the Great Lakes Tissue Co. mill in Cheboygan on Wednesday, Sept. 13.

The closure is part of the company's $500 million plan to expand its Broadway mill that will add roughly 500 new jobs. The expansion is scheduled to be operational for the first half of 2024.

Units from the Toledo Fire Department, as well as the Emergency Response Team (ERT) from Georgia-Pacific, responded Monday morning, Sept. 11, after reports of a fire in the dryer section of the paper building at the Georgia-Pacific containerboard mill.

The CT scanner and its fingerprinting technology also enables SCA to follow the logs journey through the sawmill, from sorting to finished product in the warehouse.