Ilim Group to start the construction of a plant in the scope of investment project in Bratsk

The major Russian producer of marketable pulp and board Ilim Group is launching the construction of a plant in the scope of investment project in Bratsk with 700 mln USD worth. The plant is will be specially built to satisfy the needs of the Chinese market and the pay off period will be 2-3 years. The administration of Bratsk has granted authorization on March, 25. Earlier the company has received the favourable conclusion of the state expert assessment department.

The construction will be performed as a part of investment program of the company and will include the construction of a new state-of-the-art pulp cooking line, pulp washing and pulp bleaching as well as installation of pulp drying machine, a new recovery boiler, the construction of workshops for production of chemicals and lumber yards and implementation of the whole range of other facilities aimed at environmental protection.

The major resource base will be the forests of Bratsk and nearby districts, the part of raw materials supply will be from Krasnoyarsk Area. The representatives of the company are sure that the successful implementation of the project will allow increasing the product output at the Bratsk PPM up to the level of one million tons per year thus making the plant itself "one of the biggest and the most up-to-date companies manufacturing the softwood pulp in the world".

"We are sure that all new production facilities that we open will be in high demand in China", - noticed Paul Herbert, CEO of Ilim Group. Mr Herbert also assumes that in the future the company may also attract the Chinese investments for the implementation of its projects: «If we are thinking about opening of new production facilities at the Russian East we will be sure that some of our Chinese partners are highly interested in investing such projects».

Mr Herbert pointed out that China is now one of the most powerful markets of pulp and paper consumption and one of the major partners in the Asia Region. The China's share in the total amount of produced by Ilim items exceeds 40%. Every day Ilim supplies to China up to 3.5 tsnd tons of products, concluded the head of the company.