Sappi signs milestone 175GWh per annum renewable energy Power Purchase Agreement with Enpower Trading

Koehler has joined the World BioEconomy Circle, a communication platform for stakeholders who have dedicated themselves to the subject of the bioeconomy. The objective of the BioEconomy Circle is to enable discussion of and improve on the latest developments, ideas, and visions in the circular bioeconomy, and to facilitate mutual learning. The BioEconomy Circle has grown substantially since it was introduced by the World BioEconomy Forum™, which was founded in 2018 by Jukka Kantola. The forum brings together a global community of stakeholders, who can use the platform to find out about a broad range of events and other activities in the field of the bioeconomy. It was set up in response to the increasing importance of this field.

The struggle: material availability and consumer needs. As the struggle on critical raw materials continues to be a problem in vehicle electrification, we are going to need to mine a huge number of metals like cobalt and lithium to electrify the world’s vehicle fleet. This is where smaller batteries become important. – Currently, manufacturers of the next generation’s electric vehicles are competing on range. This means putting big and powerful batteries into future cars so they can travel farther between charges, says Otto Kivi, Senior Business Development Specialist in battery materials at Stora Enso. The solution: Lignode® by Stora Enso – an alternative to graphite. EV batteries are based on lithium-ion constructions made up of lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, and graphite. The last-mentioned is used for the negative end of a lithium-ion battery known as the anode. While graphite deposits are not scarce, the supply of battery-grade graphite used in EV batteries is much tighter. In addition, graphite is a strictly layered material which can be slow to charge. However, Stora Enso has come up with a solution where graphite is replaced with hard carbon. Lignode® by Stora Enso has an amorphous, highly open structure enabling faster charging/discharging and higher cycling stability. This lignin-based hard carbon can replace natural or synthetic graphite either in parts or completely.

Operating profit for January–September 2017 was SEK 1 745 million (January–September 2016: SEK 1 583 million excluding items affecting comparability). The improvement in earnings was due to higher wood product prices and better earnings from forests. Compared with the second quarter, operating profit increased by SEK 68 million to SEK 593 million, mainly because second-quarter earnings were negatively affected by a maintenance shutdown. Profit after tax for January–September amounted to SEK 1 336 million (982), which corresponds to earnings per share of SEK 15.9 (11.7). Return on capital employed increased to 9.4 (8.4) per cent. Cash flow was strong during the year. A dividend of SEK 1 008 million has been paid while net financial debt decreased by SEK 360 million.