Metsä Group marked the inauguration of the bioproduct mill in Kemi, Finland. The mill was inaugurated by President of Finland Alexander Stubb, chair of Metsäliitto Cooperative’s Board of Directors Jussi Linnaranta, and President and CEO of Metsä Group Ilkka Hämälä.
Metsä Group has invested more than Euro 6 billion since 2015, most of it in Finland. The largest is the Kemi bioproduct mill, worth approximately Euro 2 billion. The mill increases Finland’s annual exports by approximately half a billion euros, and its annual positive income impact in Finland will also be about half a billion euros. The bioproduct mill employs approximately 250 people, with a total of around 500 persons working in the mill area. The mill’s direct value chain in Finland employs approximately 2,500 people, mainly in wood supply.
The Kemi bioproduct mill, which does not use fossil fuels, operates below the emissions limits of the old mill’s environmental permit while having more than double the production capacity of the previous mill. The mill generates two terawatt hours of electricity per year, equivalent to the combined annual consumption of 100,000 electrically heated detached houses.
The bioproduct mill will produce 1.5 million tonnes of softwood and birch pulp per year. The pulp will be used to manufacture numerous renewable products for the everyday needs of millions of people: paperboard, tissue paper, specialty paper and printing paper. In addition to pulp, the bioproduct mill will significantly increase the production of co-products, namely tall oil, turpentine and bioenergy. Other products manufactured for sale or for Metsä’s internal use include product gas, pellets, sulphuric acid, heat and steam. In time, space for the manufacture of new products will become available on the site of the old pulp mill.
Metsä Group’s bioproduct mill and expanded paperboard mill started operations in Kemi on 20 September 2023. After an interruption caused by an explosion at the bioproduct mill’s evaporation plant, the mill resumed production in June 2024.
