Shandong Huatai Paper has successfully started up a mechanical pulping line rebuilt by Andritz at the mill in Dongying, Shandong Province, China.

The rebuild not only increased the line's capacity from 100,000 t/a to 300,000 t/a, making it the world's largest mechanical pulping line for printing and writing paper production. It also considerably reduced the line's energy consumption and increased its pulp yield and quality.

Wei Lijun, Director of Shandong Huatai Paper, says: "Thanks to the close cooperation between the teams of Andritz and Shandong Huatai, we were able to start up the rebuilt line as scheduled. We are delighted about the massive increase in capacity as well as the additional benefits of the modernization. Energy consumption has dropped by about 15% and pulp quality has greatly improved. The amount of fiber shives has also gone down significantly. As a result, we are able to cut back on imported chemi-mechanical pulp in our raw material structure, which lowers costs and supports our environmental performance."

Andritz rebuilt the two high-consistency (HC) refiners and the screw presses, disc filters, and screens, and supplied new equipment for other process steps. Andritz also provided the basic engineering and supervised the mechanical installation, commissioning, and start-up.

Shandong Huatai Paper Industry Shareholding is part of the listed Huatai Group, an important global player in the paper and chemical production sectors. The group is the world's largest producer of newsprint and China's largest producer in the chlor-alkali industry. In addition, the group makes all sorts of P&W paper, tissue, and specialty paper grades. The Huatai Group produces 3 million tons of paper and board as well as 2 million tons of chemicals per year.

Andritz Pulp & Paper provides sustainable technology, automation, and service solutions for the production of all types of pulp, paper, board and tissue.

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