Customer case:

SCA Östrand - World's largest softwood pulp line

May 6, 2020

SCA's expanded Östrand pulp mill located Timrå, Sweden, had its start-up in 2018. With this project, SCA Östrand doubled its production capacity from 430,000 tonnes to 900,000 tonnes per year and it became the largest production line for bleached softwood kraft pulp in the world. The massive project, also known as Helios, is one of the largest industrial investments in Sweden to date.

The startup was very successful, and we really worked well as a team, both internally in SCA and together with Valmet.”

Daniel Solberg, SCA’s process manager for the fiberline

Summary:

Location	Timrå, Northern Sweden
Customer challenge	Double the production capacity, without disturbing the production of the existing mill and without any serious accidents. The extensive project had 9 sub-projects, and a total of 7,900 people taking care of everything from construction work, assembly, and erection, through to startup and commissioning of the finished pulp mill.
Solution	Valmet's supply scope included: Cooking plant The world's largest softwood digester CompactCooking™ – Valmet’s continuous cooking system that gives higher pulp yield, lower rejects and reduced environmental impact. Fiberline DeltaCombi™ – Coarse screening and fine screening in a single housing. CombiScreen™ has high shive removal efficiency and excellent runability OxyTrac™ delignification with two reaction stages. Valmet’s OxyTrac™ system removes up to 65-70% of the lignin remaining after cooking State-of-the-art bleach plant with a customized and optimized bleaching sequence. SCA Östrand produces both TCF (totally chlorine-free) and ECF (elemental chlorine-free) pulp TwinRoll™ Evolution pulp washers, with high washing efficiency, availability and output consistency, producing low effluent -volumes that are achievable only with press-based bleaching Evaporation Valmet Super Concentrator with internal liquor heat treatment for stable production of high dry solids liquor. This increases steam generation in the recovery boiler and improves the mill’s overall energy efficiency Valmet TUBEL technology allows easy washing, resulting in -highest availability in the evaporation plant
Results	With Helios completed, Östrand’s production capacity has doubled to 900,000 tonnes of bleached softwood pulp per year, with the future possibility to expand to one million tonnes. “The successful result means we’ve been able to build the world’s largest softwood pulp line, on budget and on time", says Ingela Ekebro, the President for Project Helios for SCA.
Keywords	Chemical pulping, Expansion, Sweden, Europe

SCA starts world’s largest softwood pulp line

The world’s biggest production line for bleached softwood kraft pulp is now up and running in Sweden. SCA’s massive Helios project, which involved a complete rebuild of the existing Östrand pulp mill, is a textbook example of how a successful project should be executed.

Cooking and fiber line

Valmet can be your full-scope supplier in the areas of cooking, screening, washing and bleaching. With 130 locations in 33 countries we serve pulp mills world-wide.

Evaporators

Excellent results - this is what Valmet's evaporation and condensate treatment plants deliver in pulp and paper mills all over the world.