$100 million gravure printing plant for Sydney

Michael Hannan’s IPMG will produce magazines and catalogues on three high-speed gravure presses at its new Warwick Farm site.

The proposed Hannanprint installation, details of which are expected to go on planning exhibition soon, will see a massive increase in the production capacity in the highly competitive publication sector. Rotogravure presses can up to 20 per cent faster than heatset offset presses and are capable of producing much longer print runs, often into the millions.

Typically metal engraved gravure press rollers can be up to four metres wide printing 120 pages per revolution. Currently the largest heatset offset web press in Australia came on line in August – a Goss Sunday 4000 at AIW in Melbourne, which prints 80 pages per revolution.

Companies such as PMP and Webstar have made major investments in increasing their heatset web capacity in recent years. PBL Media is currently looking for a greenfield site for its own new offset plant to print ACP magazines.

The addition of three, eight–unit high-speed rotogravure presses at Hannanprint’s Warwick Farm site will change the dynamics of the web press market dramatically and introduce an even tougher level of competition. Each new press will be capable of processing over 45,000 tonnes of paper annually and producing up to 112,000 items per hour for catalogue and magazine production.

According to the proposal construction of the new site will commence late 2008 early 2009 with completion in late 2009. When commissioned it will employ up to 170 and will have its own cylinder engraving facility.

The cost of gravure cylinders has come down in recent years. Even so, the break-even point for print runs will be a matter of considerable interest. It appears inevitable the new site will take work away from Hannanprint at Alexandria where they run manroland Lithoman 48s.

If the proposal goes ahead this will be the first time rotogravure has been used to print magazines and catalogues in Sydney since the demise of the Sun Gravure and Conpress plants in the 1970s under the advancing efficiencies of the litho offset printing process. Magazines such as the Australian Women's Weekly were the mainstay at Packer-owned Conpress while Women’s Day and Pix/People at Fairfax-owned Sun Gravure

The last publication gravure printer in Australia was the Herald Gravure in Melbourne, printing Australasian Post along with inserts and catalogues. It closed up shop in the early 1980s. Since then gravure in Australia has been confined to the packaging industry where it’s ability to produce in print runs of over a million make it a natural.

The hugely productive gravure process is widely used by publication printers throughout Europe and the USA with over 150 presses in the sector. Press brands such as the Italian-made Cerutti and Schiavi are considered most likely to get the guernsey from IPMG.

Pictured: The proposed new site on the old Visy plant at Warwick Farm.