Nine Dragons' $300M Investment to Modernize Maine, Wisconsin Paper Mills

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The U.S. subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Nine Dragons Paper (Holdings) Limited announced its decision to invest $300 million in the lately acquired U.S. paper mills in Wisconsin and Maine. The investment will be made over a period of two years, said ND Paper press release. It must be noted that the above mills were purchased recently from the British Colombia, Canada-based Catalyst Paper.

The Rumford, Maine facility will see an investment of $111 million, which will be used to finance two projects. The first project aims to augment the site’s manufacturing capacity by adding a greenfield recycled-content pulp facility. The second project will install a shoe press on the paper machine, which will boost the machine’s production capacity by approximately 20%, the press release said.

Nine Dragons plans to invest $189 million towards commissioning of several projects at the Biron, Wisconsin mill. Firstly, one of the paper machines will be converted to containerboard products. In addition, the project also involves construction of a two-line greenfield recycled-content pulp facility, water treatment and fiber recovery plant, package boiler, raw material storage facilities and finished goods warehouse.

Ken Liu, CEO, ND Paper noted that the proposed long term investment will result in dramatic improvement in overall sustainability of these historic mills. It is in line with the company’s global fiber strategy, he added.