HELSINKI, Finland -- UPM announced 16 June 2015 that it will invest Euro 50 million in its Kaukas pulp mill in Lappeenranta, Finland. The investment will go toward modernizing both pulp drying machines and installing a new baling line.

Assembly will take place during a planned shutdown in autumn 2016 and start-up is scheduled for the end of 2016. The investment will benefit the entire Kaukas biorefining mill integrate through increased resource efficiency and operational flexibility, UPM said.

"Over the past two years we have made focused investments improving the production efficiency of our Pietarsaari, Kymi and Fray Bentos pulp mills. When all the projects are completed, our pulp production capacity will have increased by 10% from 3.3 million tonnes since 2013. The Kaukas investment is yet another example of well-targeted good return investments," says Anssi Klinga, Senior Vice President, UPM Pulp.

"Our biggest investment is the Euro 160 million expansion of the Kymi mill, which is proceeding well and will be completed in the autumn. The expansion will increase the mill's production capacity by 170,000 tonnes of bleached softwood and hardwood pulp," says Klinga.

These investments in the Kymi and Kaukas mills will complete UPM's strategic decoupling of its pulp and paper businesses. This will enable higher efficiency and separate optimisation of pulp and paper production, while simultaneously maintaining internal synergies at the mills.

UPM Kaukas is an integrated modern mill producing sawn timber, bleached softwood and hardwood kraft pulp, coated magazine paper, renewable diesel and energy.