Prime minister of Norway Jonas Gahr Støre and the Minister of Trade and Industry Jan Christian Vestre visited Norwegian forest owner group Viken Skog's Follum mill in Hønefoss on 5 August.
A long-term partnership between renewable packaging material producer BillerudKorsnäs and Voken Skog will establish the production of bleached chemi-thermomechanical pulp (BCTMP) in Norway.
The partnership will secure both tailormade BCTMP and wood supply supporting the strategy foe sustainable and profitable growth in paperboard.
The Follum mill already has much of the infrastructure needed to establish such a production line and is in an area with a competitive and sustainable wood supply, with good transports to BillerudKorsnäs’ board mills.
An ongoing feasibility study is expected to be completed during the first half of 2023.
"BillerudKorsnäs strategy has a clear goal - to deliver sustainable growth in packaging materials. To get the opportunity to develop the new mill in Follum as a state of the art sustainable operation is in line with our strategy. We aim for negative CO2 footprint in production with bio gas and carbon capture," said Christoph Michalski, president and CEO at BillerudKorsnäs.
The mill will be developed into a sustainable operation with high energy efficiency and a low carbon footprint from the operation and product in the value chain.
The concept will include production of biogas, use of excess heat for district heating and possibly also carbon capture.
All these activities will be developed with their domain partners.
This project is well aligned with the Norwegian governments ambition to raise new green industry in Norway based on forest and wood resources. In addition, the project is one of the rare large industry projects in the centre of Norway, rather than at the coast.
Norwegian PM visits unique sustainable packaging project
