A historic gathering of the top echelon of catalogue and magazine printing executives toured the newly converted paper machine at Norske Skog's Boyer Mill in Tasmania.
Management from Franklin Web, PMP, Hannanprint and AIW, joined newspaper executives from News Limited and Fairfax along with magazine publishers Bauer and Pacific Magazines at the industry inspection of the new LWC machine. Over a thousand tonnes of Vantage has already been run in test trials during the past few weeks with an encouraging response from the industry.
According to Andrew McKean, vice president sales, marketing and logistics Norske Skog Australia, the performance of the new paper has exceeded the company’s expectations. “It’s a brand new machine so we expected to have a few problems but it’s run very well, better than we expected,” he said. “It’s quite a change for the industry to have locally made paper and hopefully it allows us to grow the market.”
With a much shorter lead-time than the ten weeks from overseas McKean is already fielding inquiries for quick delivery of Vantage paper from local printers.
“Having locally produced LWC means our customers will benefit from shorter lead times, which in turn means lower inventory, less delays and greater flexibility. They can also deal direct with people who operate in the same time zone and they can access support as required from our skilled technical support team.
“We have a fairly solid challenge before us and we are in constant negotiation with the printers. We’ve already sold over four thousand tonne to commercial printers. Vantage is a great product in its own right and when combined with all the local benefits we believe it’s going to be a real winner,” he said.
Vantage is a LWC (light weight coated) product produced in a fairly tight range of between 51-65 gsm. This is the standard substrate for the growing catalogue market even as it has a small overlap with some lighter magazine grades.
The revamped Boyer Mill machine is a major addition to Australian printing industry infrastructure. It provides local printers with an alternative to imported papers.
The converted machine, one of two newsprint machines, will produce around 140,000 tonnes of LWC per annum. The project took 18 months to complete at a cost of $85 million.
Norske Skog’s Regional President, Andrew Leighton welcomed the new product and thanked everyone associated with the machine conversion and the new product’s development.
“Vantage is the only locally produced LWC on the market and has already run successfully on a number of major printing presses. It is a new and exciting product incorporating the latest advancements in paper making and coating technology. Vantage is truly a world class LWC that is ideally suited to the modern, high-speed presses that operate in this region.
“I would like to thank the Federal and Tasmanian Governments for supporting this project together with the significant capital investment by our owners. This project is a key component of our regional strategy to transform the business from being wholly a newsprint producer to having a more diverse future in paper, fibre and energy.
“I congratulate the team at Boyer for their painstaking work in converting an existing machine through the addition of state of the art new equipment. The project has also been strongly supported by paper machinery supplier Metso, our new on-site coating filler supplier Omya, design engineering partners Beca Amec plus many local Tasmanian contractors and suppliers. In addition we have drawn upon Norske Skog’s global knowledge and expertise.
“This has been a real team effort across our entire business and literally hundreds of people have been involved in one way or another to make it a success. They can all be proud of their efforts,” said Leighton.
The machine conversion involved the addition of new coating, drying and calendaring equipment, the installation of a new state of the art winder as well as extensive building works, upgrades to existing equipment and process changes to ensure the final product meets the high quality specifications and printing performance demanded by the Australian market.
There will be an official opening of the machine on 11 June 2014.
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