Espoo, Finland 11 July 2017 -- (News release) -- Metsä announced that the new logistics solution designed specifically for Metsä Group's bioproduct mill at Äänekoski is ready to serve the mill's wood and pulp transport.

Once fully operational, the bioproduct mill - set to start up in mid-August 2017 - will use 6.5 million cubic metres of pulpwood and woodchip. It will produce 1.3 million tonnes of pulp a year.

Metsä Group will purchase the pulpwood needed by the bioproduct mill chiefly from within a radius of 100-150 kilometres of Äänekoski. The bioproduct mill will receive an average of 240 truckloads and 70 rail freight carriages of pulpwood a day.

"The timber trucks will transport the wood directly from the forest stocks to the mill or to a buffer stock in one of the fifteen terminals we've set up," says Heikki Karhunen, Metsä Forest´s SVP, Customership.

After the new bioproduct mill is fully operational, its employment effect throughout the value chain in Finland will be to provide 2,500 jobs, of which 1,500 will be new ones.

Pulp deliveries from the new mill to customers will begin in early September 2017. Some 70% of the bioproduct mill's production will be exported.

"Export logistics will be based on a comprehensive new solution, in which VR Transpoint will be responsible for the rail transport of goods to the Vuosaari port in Helsinki and for the port operations in cooperation with Oy M. Rauanheimo Ab," says Tarja Nousiainen, Metsä Fibre's VP, Pulp Supplies.

One of the key renewals in the production chain is the bioproduct mill's automated pulp distribution centre, which increases the efficiency and accuracy of deliveries. According to Nousiainen, the new technology has required the large-scale development and integration of IT systems with service providers.

Metsä Fibre has also built its own product warehouse at the Vuosaari port which can house 80,000 tonnes of pulp. The rail freight transports to Vuosaari will be handled in their entirety with environmentally efficient electric locomotives, once the project concerning the rail connection to the Äänekoski bioproduct mill produced by VR Track is completed in the summer of 2017.

Metsä Fibre is a leading producer of bioproducts and bioenergy. Metsä Fibre is part of Metsä Group.