Metsä Group, a company in the forest products industry, announced on Thursday that the Metsä Fiber division has decided to build a new bioproduct plant in Kemi worth EUR 1.6 billion. The construction phase will take about two and a half years, and the plant is scheduled for completion in the third quarter of 2023.
The building plan is the largest investment ever made by the forest industry in Finland.
The new mill will replace Metsä Group’s current pulp production in Kemi and will be the largest production facility in the forest sector in the northern hemisphere. The Kemi bioproduct plant is designed to produce approximately 1.5 million tonnes of softwood and hardwood pulp per year, as well as other bioproducts.
It also produces 2.0 TWh of renewable electricity per year, which corresponds to the annual electric heating needs of more than 100,000 detached houses. Most of the approximately 7.6 million cubic meters of wood used by the mill is to be sourced from Finland.
According to Metsä Group, the new Kemi plant will create about 1,500 new jobs throughout the direct value chain in Finland and increase the annual value of Finnish exports by about half a billion euros.
Source: The Nordic Page
