Stora Enso's sawmill in Ala, Sweden is investing in one TC progressive kiln, two FB-continuous kilns and three cart-fed batch kilns from Swedish Valutec.

"When the new Valutec dryers are in place, we will have a state-of-the-art, sustainable drying park, tailored to our product range. We will become more energy-efficient with high-tech drying technology in all our kilns," says Jenny Andersson, sawmill manager at Stora Enso Ala.

Stora Enso previously had extensive experience from partnerships, project implementation and products from Valutec, which made them an obvious participant in the procurement procedure.

"An important quality aspect favoring Valutec was that their dryers have a stainless-steel construction proven to be adapted to the Nordic environment near the sea where we operate," says Jenny.

Valutec chose early on to only manufacture dryers in stainless steel. It has proven superior to aluminum. An aluminum dryer lasts for about 20 years, while a stainless-steel dryer lasts forever, if maintained correctly.

The installation of the wood dryers will begin in the summer and all dryers will be put into operation on January 25 and the plan is for other production to continue as usual during the construction of the dryers.

Already in 1854, Bergvik, Ala AB built the first sawmill in Ala and since 1998 it has been part of the Stora Enso group. Today, Ala is a pine sawmill, with an annual capacity of approx. 400,000 m3, which produces sawn wood products and finishing finger jointed products. It also has its own pellet production of approx. 100,000 tons. The company has 143 employees.