Holmen Interim Report January-September 2020

Solenis, a leading global producer of specialty chemicals, will increase prices by 7 to 15 percent on all process and water treatment product lines across the EMEA region, effective immediately or as customer contracts allow. The price increase is necessary due to the tightening of raw material supplies globally and escalating energy, packaging and transportation costs.

As part of sustainable logistics concepts and in order to increase supply chain reliability for an important raw material, pulp, Koehler is making greater use of rail transportation. “We have expanded the existing rail connection, which was too small, added manual underground switches to it, and also purchased a modern shunting robot. This will enable employees to handle shunting work at the plant independently and flexibly and to process four times as much incoming tonnage,” explained Andreas Riedlinger, logistics team leader at Koehler. Total investments amounted to EUR 1 million. Since the start of the year, three to four weekly block trains have re-placed deliveries by truck, which amounted to as many as 15 per day.

Ahlstrom has signed an agreement to divest its Aspa pulp mill in Sweden to Sweden Timber. The agreement includes the pulp mill and all its operations. This is a key step in Ahlstrom's growth transformation journey, reinforcing the company’s strategic commitment to sustainable specialty materials. Aspa pulp mill produces bleached and unbleached softwood pulp that is used in a broad range of applications in paper and sold globally. It has an annual capacity of approximately 200,000 tonnes and 174 employees. Several external parties have expressed interest in acquiring the Aspa plant throughout the years. For Ahlstrom, it was important to find an owner who has an interest in further developing the mill and ensuring its long-term success. Sweden Timber is a Swedish wood processing company with assets also in papermaking and wood composites.