Ecco Newsprint Begins Work on Delayed Teesside Paper Mill

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Researched by Protel Associates Limited in alliance with Industrial Info Europe (Galway, Ireland)--Ecco Newsprint (London, England) is set to begin work on a much-delayed recycled newsprint paper mill at the Wilton International industrial park in Teesside, northern England.

The project, which has seen costs spiral from an original figure of £275 million (US$449.8 million) in 2006 to a high of £500 million (US$817.79 million) last year, has been hit by numerous delays related to funding, rising costs, and difficult print market conditions in Europe. Site work is expected to start in mid-2010, with the plant being brought online about 20 months later in 2012. Ecco already has signed a letter of intent with Finnish company Metso Paper to equip the plant with its PM1 newsprint recycling machinery line.

The plant will be one of only two new paper mills constructed in the U.K. for a decade and will produce more than 400,000 tonnes of newsprint per year using recovered waste materials as raw material. According to Ecco, the mill will result in more than half a million tonnes of recovered waste paper being diverted from landfills per year. Ecco said using recycled paper waste will make the plant very efficient, using 1 megawatt (MW) to produce one tonne of fibre, compared to 2.8 MW for paper made from virgin fibre.

The plant is hoping to capitalise on the U.K.'s appetite for newsprint. The U.K. newspaper printing market is the largest in Europe but more than two-thirds of the 2.65 million tonnes of newsprint consumed in the U.K. is imported from North America, the Nordic region and Europe. Ecco hopes to supply a large part of that domestic demand.

Although costs for the plant rocketed to almost £500 million (US$817.79 million) at one stage last year, the company said in July that the finished plant could cost closer £400 million (US$654.12 million). This is still £125 million (US$204.41 million) more than originally predicted, thanks largely to the strength of the Euro. Right now, the market demand for newsprint is weakening.

Thanks to numerous setbacks, Ecco will be entering the market behind rival Palm Paper (Kings Lynn, Norfolk), a subsidiary of Germany-based Papierfabrik Palm (Aelen, Germany). The company started the world's largest recycled newsprint machine in August at Kings Lynn in Norfolk, capable of producing 400,000 tonnes of newsprint a year from 100% recycled fibre. The three other U.K. newsprint mills are Aylesford Newsprint in Kent, AbitibiBowater in Ellesmere Port, and UPM Shotton in Deeside.

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