Investments

Fibre Excellence starts installing new biomass turbine

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Fibre Excellence is starting its modernisation project at the Tarascon pulp mill in France, which will see investments totalling 180 million EUR over the next four years. The company announced it had ordered a new biomass turbine for the mill, as planned. A total of 50 million EUR is to be invested in the project. The new turbine is planned to be put into operation before the end of next year. The generated energy will be used for the company’s own production and fed into the public grid.

Before the end of this year, Fibre Excellence also plans a longer maintenance stop to carry out maintenance and modernisation work in Tarascon.

Fibre Excellence has long considered installing a new biomass-fuelled turbine in Tarascon.  So far, the plan has not been implemented because the future of the plant was uncertain. The company had been in receivership since October 2020 and was finally taken over by its main shareholder Paper Excellence on 1st August. A new name is to symbolise the new beginning: From now on, the subsidiary in Tarascon will be called Fibre Excellence Provence.

Fibre Excellence Provence has a capacity of 250,000 tpy of softwood pulp and employs 280 people. The mill can produce both bleached and unbleached pulp. However, production was largely switched to unbleached pulp this year because demand in this area is good and because it allows a heavy tax on the bleaching process to be avoided, a company spokesperson explained. Fibre Excellence also operates a pulp mill in Saint-Gaudens, France, which can make up to 290,000 tpy of hardwood and softwood pulp.