ÅF Awarded Contract to Expand World’s Largest Dissolving Pulp Mill
Sweden’s ÅF has been awarded an engineering, procurement and construction management contract by Sappi Limited to improve the environmental footprint of the Saiccor Mill in South Africa and expand its capacity.
The project is an equal effort joint venture between ÅF and the project, engineering and technical services company, Wood. The project is estimated to be 320 000 hours, which makes it the largest pulp and paper order ever secured by ÅF.
Saiccor Mill is situated south of the port of Durban and is the single largest producer of dissolving wood pulp, used in particular for viscose staple fibres in clothing and textiles.
- South Africa is one of our strongest pulp and paper markets and this contract further strengthens our position as an international engineering and design company with focus on end-to-end projects and solutions, says Mikael Fränckel, Head of Process Industry at ÅF.
The project will be executed by an international ÅF-Wood team with engineers and designers from South Africa, Sweden, Finland and Brazil.
Upon completion of the expansion, the production capacity will be 890,000 tons per annum of sulphite chemical cellulose as bleached alpha 92 pulp - used for production of viscose staple, filament and lyocell fibres.
The mill will also be in line with European environmental legislations and standards with reduced carbon dioxide emissions and substantially reduced chemical oxygen emissions.
The project is expected to be completed by Q3 – 2020.
