ST Paper wants to turn Verso Duluth into tissue mill

摘要

There is possibly a future for the idled Duluth printing and packaging paper mill of the Verso Corporation in the USA. US company ST Paper & Tissue has announced in an open letter that it will negotiate with Verso on acquiring the mill in Minnesota. The company will convert the site in the event of a purchase. ST Paper & Tissue plans to build a tissue mill in Duluth. The company already operates two tissue mills in Wisconsin and Virginia. They host three tissue paper machines and produce toilet paper, paper towels and napkins for the Away-From-Home segment. The Duluth mill has stood idle since last June. It used to produce SC paper and packaging paper for bags and sacks with a capacity of 245,000 tpy. Verso indefinitely idled the site last summer together with its Wisconsin Rapids mill that produced graphic paper and packaging paper. Sustained weak demand exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic pushed the company to withdraw around 40 per cent of its capacity from the market. The company wanted to explore several options for the two sites, including a sale as well as resumption of production if demand recovers after the pandemic.