Goole investment the largest ever for Metsa Tissue team as timeline …
A loose timeline has been laid out by the Metsa Tissue team as they look to deliver the UK’s largest paper mill and the group’s biggest ever investment in Goole.
Chief executive Esa Kaikkonen, technical director Alan Jeffery and senior vice president for UK and Ireland, Mika Paljakka, met with local stakeholders including town MP Andrew Percy and local authority leader Anne Handley, hours after the site selection announcement[1] was made public. As reported, the Finnish forestry co-operative aims to invest hundreds of millions of pounds in the site by the M62, dwarfing a £320 million build currently underway in Sweden.
Mr Kaikkonen took in the ploughed field currently being subjected to investigation work, as the ambitions for the Humber Freeport location were spelled out. He said: “It is really exciting to be here, it is my second time, but given the context this is even more exciting. Goole is a gateway to the UK and Irish market for us, it is an area developing green, cutting edge technologies in renewable energy, while the Humber has a strong industrial heritage, a strong manufacturing heritage, which will ensure a skilled workforce.”
The UK is one of the largest markets for tissue paper in Europe, but imports half of what it uses from overseas. Metsa Tissue aims to change that, scaling up to 240,000 tonnes a year production from a site that spans more than 200 acres.
“We aim to reach full capacity over the next decade, it will take time,” Mr Kaikkonen said, with the business having first expressed an interest publicly in the UK in 2021. “We are now in the planning phase, and we anticipate that it will be two years based on previous experience we have. So with planning, permitting and then contracting construction companies – and time to confirm feasibility of the model – we think it will be two and a half years to consider this, thereafter building can start.”
Metsa chief executive Esa Kaikkonen speaks to Humber business editor David Laister on site in Goole. (Image: Katie Pugh)
Fresh fibre pulp is the key raw material, sourced from sustainably-managed forests in the Nordics – forests owned by the co-operative that controls the £6 billion turnover 80-year-old business.
Mr Kaikkonen told how the 90,000 private forest owners represent about 50 per cent of the country’s timber products market. “It is a vast resource in that sense, and ensures a really sustainable value chain, ensuring our operations are as sustainable as possible,” he said.
The Goole plant will use cutting-edge sustainable production technologies to deliver an efficient and modern facility with world class environmental performance. Describing its activity as rooted in sustainability, the company has a target for all products to be manufactured from fully fossil-fuel-free raw materials by 2030 as it strives to achieve a net zero society. Mills, including the new Goole facility, are to operate without the use of fossil fuels by 2030. And with the energy intensive nature, the importance of the Energy Estuary location was further stressed.
It will receive the pulp in Hull, and potentially transport via vessel to Goole, as it looks to save every possible tonne of CO2, producing tissues for both retail sale to consumer and its professional market – hotels, schools, restaurants and the like. The next step from the Goole gates will be for finshed prodcuts to hit distribution centres – many of which are also located on the M62 corridor further west.
The team is also looking forward to a next visit, a public presentation in early November. “We are creating 400 jobs and many more in the supply chain and construction, it will translate to a big impact on GBP for the UK and the local community,” Mr Kaikkonen added. “It will be the biggest investment we have ever made.”
References
- ^ site selection announcement (www.business-live.co.uk)