Project Description
The Project is to build plantation-based integrated board and pulp mills at Beihai city in Guangxi, southern China. The mill site will initially include a 450 000 tons per year state-of-the-art paperboard machine and pulp capacity of 900 000 tons per year, including necessary energy plant and auxiliary facilities. In a unique set-up, the board and pulp mills will be self-sufficiently integrated with wood supply from 120 000 hectares of self-managed eucalyptus plantations. The ultimate target is to expand the paperboard capacity to 900 000 tons at a later stage. The project will serve the fast-growing market for liquid packaging board and other premium consumer board grades.
The project investment will be approximately EUR 1.6 billion. The project will be financed through a combination of debt and equity on an approximately 60/40 basis. The debt financing is expected to be a mix of export credit agency, multilateral and commercial bank debt. The investment is subject to regulatory approvals, the signing of final documentation and other customary conditions precedent. Construction at the industrial site will commence when the mentioned preconditions have been fulfilled, which is expected to be in the second half of 2012. Production is scheduled to start in the fourth quarter of 2014.
Stora Enso Pulp & Paper Asia AB (the “Company”) will implement the Project through three subsidiaries: two will be 85% owned by the Company and 15% owned by the Guangxi Forestry Group, a state-owned company under the Guangxi provincial government. Stora Enso Oyj is the Sponsor and Guarantor of the Project.