Metsä Group marked the inauguration of the bioproduct mill in Kemi on Wednesday, 23 October 2024. The mill was inaugurated by President of Finland Alexander Stubb, chair of Metsäliitto Cooperative's Board of Directors Jussi Linnaranta, and President and CEO of Metsä Group Ilkka Hämälä.

Metsä Group has invested more than EUR 6 billion since 2015, most of it in Finland. The largest is the Kemi bioproduct mill which is today being inaugurated, worth approximately EUR 2 billion. The mill increases Finland's annual exports by approximately half a billion euros, and its annual positive income impact in Finland will also be about half a billion euros. The bioproduct mill employs approximately 250 people, with a total of around 500 persons working in the mill area. The mill's direct value chain in Finland employs approximately 2,500 people, mainly in wood supply.

Metsä Group's principle is to build mills that take energy production, environmental efficiency, and the manufacturing of wood-based products to a new level. The Kemi bioproduct mill, which does not use fossil fuels, operates below the emissions limits of the old mill's environmental permit while having more than double the production capacity of the previous mill. The mill generates two terawatt hours of electricity per year, equivalent to the combined annual consumption of 100,000 electrically heated detached houses.

"When we have the opportunity to carry out a development project like the bioproduct mill, the target levels must be raised. The bar must be higher than ever before," said Metsä Group President and CEO Ilkka Hämälä in his speech.

According to Hämälä, the bioproduct mill concept, which is built in Kemi and Äänekoski, makes it possible to achieve the forest industry's climate and environmental goals. The bioproduct mill's core is its state-of-the-art pulp mill, serving as the basis for development of industry utilising pulp and production side streams. This gradually developing complex is called a bioproduct mill.

"Since its founding over a century ago, the Kemi mill has been a major contributor to the vitality of northern Finland. But the development of Metsä Group's industrial ecosystem will not end with these investments. Kemi's success story in the Finnish forest industry will continue in the coming decades," said Hämälä.

The bioproduct mill will produce 1.5 million tonnes of softwood and birch pulp per year. The pulp will be used to manufacture numerous renewable products for the everyday needs of millions of people: paperboard, tissue paper, specialty paper and printing paper. In addition to pulp, the bioproduct mill will significantly increase the production of co-products, namely tall oil, turpentine and bioenergy. Other products manufactured for sale or for Metsä's internal use include product gas, pellets, sulphuric acid, heat and steam. In time, space for the manufacture of new products will become available on the site of the old pulp mill.

Metsä Group's bioproduct mill and expanded paperboard mill started operations in Kemi on 20 September 2023. After an interruption caused by an explosion at the bioproduct mill's evaporation plant, the mill resumed production in June 2024. The mill's second year of operation is now starting from a solid foundation.