OTW November 9, 2006

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	November 9, 2006 Please click on the images below to visit our Sponsors. For more information, contact jade.finley@voith.com or visit www.voithfabrics.com. For information on sponsoring this newsletter or other sponsorship opportunities with TAPPI, contact Eric Fletty at efletty@tappi.org or by calling +1 770 209-7535. Additional Resources TAPPI BUYER'S GUIDE TAPPI CALENDAR OF EVENTS TAPPI JOURNAL THE PLACE INTL. NONWOVENS JOURNAL CORRUGATING INTERNATIONAL TAPPI members receive this newsletter free-of-charge as a benefit of membership. Non-members can arrange to receive it by joining TAPPI online at Membership Information or by contacting TAPPI's Member Connection Specialists at 1 800 332-8686 (USA), 1 800 446-9431 (Canada), or +1 770 446-1400 (International) and requesting an application. To unsubscribe forward this message with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject: memberconnection@tappi.org TAPPI assumes no responsibility for statements of fact and opinion; they are not intended nor should they be construed as a solicitation of or suggestion by TAPPI for any agreed-upon course of conduct or concerted action of any kind.	FROM THE WIRE AMERICAN ISRAELI PAPER MILLS said that it has been notified by the Haifa district manager of the Ministry of Environmental Protection that, in the ministry's opinion, the company's Hadera facility has deviated from air quality standards, as reported by the Israeli press, and that an investigation may be required. The district manager noted, however, that the plant has invested a great deal to improve sewage treatment and other areas related to environmental quality. The company pointed out, in fact, that it has been investing tens of millions of shekels to convert the plant from fuel oil to natural gas as is normal in the western world, but conditions beyond its control have delayed the conversion, which was originally scheduled to be completed by now. BOISE CASCADE reports that its Boise Building Materials Distribution (BBMD) division is building a new distribution center in Milton, Fla., near Pensacola. BBMD is a wholesale distributor of a large variety of building materials serving Pro Dealers and DIY retailers in the U.S. With this new facility, BBMD will have 30 locations across the U.S. Construction of an 80,000-ft2 warehouse has begun on the 27-acre site, located near major truck transportation corridors including Interstate 10. The facility will also be served by rail. Completion and startup are scheduled for late in the first quarter of 2007. DELL reports that its marketing publications now use an average of 50% recycled content paper (as much as 90% in many of its publications), exceeding a five-year company goal to use 50% recycled content by 2009. The company estimates that it is thus avoiding the use of nearly 35,000 tons of virgin fiber paper per year, which, it notes, is the equivalent of saving more than 250,000 trees. The company explains that it established a Forest Products Stewardship Model in October 2004 after consultation with a number of stakeholders. The model sets two primary goals for the company: (1) Increased use of recycled paper, specifically using 50% recycled content in all marketing catalogues publications within five years; and (2) Purchasing 25% of all paper requirements from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) sources by 2010. Dell's newspaper inserts are currently printed on paper with 90% - 100 % recycled fiber. Catalogues for small- and medium-sized business customers are printed on paper with more than 80% recycled content, and catalogues for consumers are printed on paper containing 30% recycled-content. Globally, Dell's average recycled content use in marketing publications is 50%. The company reports that it is currently sourcing between 15% and 20% of paper from FSC-certified sources, exceeding an interim goal to source 10% with FSC certification by 2006 and quickly closing in on its 2009 goal of 25%. Dell adds that it has consulted with each of its paper suppliers about company policies on responsible sourcing for paper supplies. INTERNATIONAL PAPER has completed the previously announced sale of 4.2 million acres of forestland in the Southeastern U.S. and Michigan to an investor group led by Resource Management Service (RMS) for approximately $5 billion in cash and notes. Together with the $1.13 billion sale to TimberStar Southwest completed last week, 2006 fourth-quarter proceeds from these two forestland transactions total approximately $6.1 billion in cash and notes, and will result in an estimated special fourth-quarter pre-tax gain in excess of $4 billion. With the closing of this sale, proceeds from transformation- related forestland sales now total approximately $6.6 billion. The transaction with RMS was announced in April 2006, as part of IP's sale of the majority of its U.S. forestlands. In connection with the transaction, the parties also entered into a 20-year fiber supply agreement for IP's pulp and paper mills in the South, a 10-year fiber supply agreement on the Michigan forestlands to be assigned to IP's former coated paper facilities in the region (now owned by Verso Paper), and a 10-year fiber supply agreement for IP's wood products facilities, all at market prices LEGION PAPER, a distributor of fine art, museum mounting board, decorative, and digital art papers, has acquired Moab Paper Co. of Moab, Utah, a producer of fine art and photographic media, forming Moab by Legion Paper serving the digital fine print market. Legion, with locations in the New York and Los Angeles areas, stocks more than 3,500 papers from 50-plus mills worldwide. Gregory Schern, Moab's president, will head the new division, with distribution moving to Legion Paper's specialized warehouses in California and New Jersey. The transaction will be completed by the end of this year. LOUISIANA-PACIFIC has elected Lizanne Gottung to its board of directors. Gottung is senior VP and chief human resources officer at Kimberly-Clark, with worldwide responsibility for all human resource functions. A 25-five year veteran of K-C, she has held a variety of human resources, manufacturing, and operational roles of increasing responsibility, assuming her current position in 2002. Earlier this month, the company's board authorized an increase in its size from 9 to 10 directors. METSÄLIITTO has sold its forest holdings in Latvia, totalling some 4,800 hectares, to the Swedish forestry group Södra. The company says that the sale of its forest holdings in Latvia is a part of the Group's on--going focus on its core business. The sale is a continuation of Metsäliitto's Baltic forestry divestitures, which included the sale of its Estonian forest holdings this past June. IN OTHER METSÄLIITTO NEWS, two new members have been elected to the Group's board of directors. The new members are Arto Hiltunen, 48, Managing Director and Chairman of the Board of HOK-Elanto, and Timo Saukkonen, 43, a farmer from Simpele. Outgoing member of the board, Unto Kotipalo, a farmer, was re-elected. Carl G. Björnberg, Chairman of Myllykoski Corp.'s board of directors, who has been a member of the Metsäliitto board since 1996, resigned from his position, having reached the age of 65. Outgoing member Pekka Turtiainen, 63, a farmer from Savonlinna, did not seek re-election. NEWPAGE is permanently shutting down No. 7 paper machine at its subsidiary, Luke Paper Co., in Luke, Md., as part of the company's ongoing efforts to enhance its cost position and better align capacity with market demand. Some 130 positions will be eliminated at that facility. Additionally, the company plans to take market-related downtime at its subsidiary, Rumford Paper Co. in Rumford, Me., to match production with market demand. Rumford's No. 11 paper machine is expected to be down for three months, beginning in the first quarter of 2007. Following the shutdown of No. 7 paper machine (100,000 tpy capacity), which was originally installed in 1904 and modernized several times over the years, the Luke mill will produce approximately 550,000 tpy of coated paper on two paper machines with approximately 950 employees. The paper machine shutdown and related activities are expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2007. NewPage expects the market-related downtime at Rumford to be approximately 25,000 tons of coated paper during the first quarter of 2007. The No. 11 paper machine manufactures some 300 tpd of coated paper. The decision to take market-related downtime at the Rumford mill will affect approximately 50 employees in the first quarter of 2007. NORSKE SKOG is playing an active role in developing New Zealand's future electricity supplies. The company reports that it has joined forces with the state-owned Mighty River Power (MRP) company to build a new geothermal power station at the Norske Skog Tasman paper mill in Kawerau. Construction started this month and the facility is due to be completed towards the end of 2008. Norske Skog Tasman will utilize about 70 MW of a total capacity of 90 MW, representing two-thirds of the mill's future electricity requirements at a very competitive price. MRP will own the generating facility, which will cost NOK 1.2 billion (approximately $185 million). RAYONIER announced that C. David Brown II, chairman of the Florida law firm Broad and Cassel, has joined its board of directors. Brown joined Broad and Cassel in 1980 and has been chairman since 2000. As a member of the firm's real estate, land use, and environmental law practice groups, his professional focus has been directed at organizing major corporate, real estate, and governmental transactions. SFK PULP has completed its acquisition of the American Fiber Mill from American Fiber Resources and the Great Lakes Mill from Great Lakes Pulp Co. for a combined price of $156.1 million. The two mills join SFK's existing mill portfolio that includes the Saint-Félicien Mill in Quebec (375,000 metric tpy of bleached kraft pulp) and the Fairmont Mill in West Virginia and Menominee Mill in Michigan (combined 360,000 metric tpy of recycled market pulp). The company employs some 550 people. SONOCO announced that Eddie Smith, VP, Customer and Business Development, has been named VP, Industrial Products and Paper - Europe, which includes the company's European tube, core, and paper operations, effective January 1. Smith replaces James Harrell, division VP, Industrial Products and Paper - Europe, who has served in Europe since 2002 and will return to the U.S. after a transition period to the position of staff VP, Global Operating Excellence - IPD. SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY INITIATIVE (SFI) PROGRAM has added five new participants. These include AV Nackawic, a 75/25 joint venture by the Aditya Birla Group of India and Tembec, British Columbia Timber Sales (BCTS), Kalesnikoff Lumber Co., TC&I Timber Co., and Terrace Bay Pulp. With the addition of these five participants, the SFI program now has 217 program participants with more than 130 million acres enrolled in the program. AV Nackawic, located in New Brunswick, will produce dissolving pulp. It holds a provincial lease on 630,000 acres. BCTS is an autonomous organization within the B.C. Ministry of Forests and Range created to develop Crown timber for auction to establish market price and capture the value of the asset for the public. The company, with an annual allowable cut of approximately 16 million m3/yr, plans to manage about 16% of its total harvest area under the SFI program. Kalesnikoff, also located in British Columbia, produces more than 200 different specialty products in a variety of species in both custom and standard dimension lumber sizes. It has an annual production capacity of 65 million board feet and holds a provincial lease on 170,000 acres. TC&I owns some 80,000 acres of commercial timberland in North Carolina and 4,000 acres in South Carolina. The land was acquired last month from International Paper. Terrace Bay Pulp, based in Terrace Bay, Ont., recently resumed operations at the mill after purchasing the facility from Neenah Paper Co. It is responsible for the continued management of approximately 5 million acres of provincial crown land. TEMPLE-INLAND has elected Richard Smith, chairman and editor-in-chief of Newsweek, to its board of directors. Prior to becoming chairman of Newsweek in March 1998, Smith served as president from 1991 until 1998. He was chairman of the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) from 1996 to 1997 and the founding chairman of the MPA's New Media Committee. He is also a former board member of the American Society of Magazine Editors. With the election of Smith, Temple-Inland's board consists of 13 members, all of which are independent directors. The company operates four business segments: corrugated packaging, forest products, real estate, and financial services. UPM is expanding its seedling nursery at Joroinen, Finland. Construction of a new 2,000-m² plastic greenhouse and expansion of the outdoor area is currently underway, with project completion scheduled for next spring. Following the expansion, the nursery at Joroinen will produce 13 million seedlings per year. The seedlings will be used to regenerate about 7,000 hectares of UPM's own forestland or those of the forest service customers. The Joroinen facility was established in 1980, and UPM has developed its nursery operations and seedling production there over an extended period. The company owns approximately 900,000 hectares of forest. WEYERHAEUSER has reportedly agreed to sell its Carrot River sawmill and Hudson Bay plywood mill, both in Saskatchewan, to C&C Wood Products of Quesnel, B.C. C&C had previously acquired a mill in Grande Cache, Alberta, from Weyerhaeuser in 2004. The Carrot River mill employs 116 people and the Hudson Bay workforce totals 183. Weyerhaeuser took ownership of the two mills as part of its MacMillan Bloedel acquisition in 1999. In a separate lumber related announcement, Weyerhaeuser said it will begin construction in the spring to upgrade the planer mill at its Grande Prairie, Alta., softwood lumber sawmill. The project, expected to be completed by the end of 2007, is the first significant upgrade to the facility since it opened in 1980. The Grande Prairie mill has an annual production capacity of 320 million board feet of lumber and employs 225 people. No production will be lost during the construction period. IN OTHER WEYERHAEUSER NEWS, the company reports that it has acquired OrganicID, a developer of printed radio frequency identification (RFID) devices. OrganicID holds proprietary technology to design and develop low cost, item-level RFID tags for inventory control and supply-chain applications. The organic transistor is constructed by successively depositing and patterning multiple layers of conductive materials on an insulating substrate. The technology is especially important to the packaging industry as more consumer products manufacturers and retailers move toward RFID to identify, count, and manage inventory. OrganicID is located in Colorado Springs, Colo. ITU Ventures was the venture capital investor in OrganicID. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. WORLD WASTE TECHNOLOGIES, San Diego, Calif., has named Dr. Jim Ferris, president and CEO of the Institute of Paper Science and Technology from 1996 to 2003 and VP of research at Weyerhaeuser from 1988 to 1996, as its new president and COO. WWT is involved in the recycling of Municipal Solid Waste, particularly wastepaper streams that contain packaging/containerboards, cardboards, and paper products. In his new role, Ferris will oversee day-to-day operations of the company, including Plant No. 1 in Anaheim, Calif., that was constructed and commissioned earlier this year. Ferris joined WWT's board of directors in 2004 and has been involved in assisting with commercialization of the company's Quadra-C unbleached pulp product. He recently undertook a more active consulting role in general management with the company, which led to his appointment to the current position of president/COO. PAPER NEWS INTERNATIONAL PAPER has introduced a new bulk bin, the latest in its line of agricultural packaging solutions. The bin is rectangular with a built in 45o structural corner support, providing increased room for produce without compromising structure. The design allows coverage of the pallet corners for improved safety. The bin's four-wall flaps, available in double and triple wall, fold into the full length of the box to provide extra support on the box sides where compression strength is needed. It also has a lock bottom feature that rests on top of the pallet, providing additional structural support. The bin is available with either a recyclable triple-wall corrugated pallet, a traditional wooden pallet, or without a pallet. PUBLISHED PRICE INCREASES AHLSTROM has announced a plan to increase prices of its papers for flexible packaging, labels, posters, and for office and graphic applications, effective January 1. The company says the amount of the increases, to be discussed with customers in the coming weeks, will depend on the nature of the products, on existing contracts, and invoicing currencies. Ahlstrom notes that the price increases are necessitated by the continuing escalation of raw materials, energy, and transportation costs. SÖDRA CELL, citing "a continuously strong pulp market," has raised the prices of its hardwood pulp (birch and eucalyptus), effective the first of this month. The company says the new price will be $680/metric ton, representing an increase of $20/metric ton. The Sweden-based company operates five pulp mills-three in Sweden and two in Norway, with a combined capacity of some 2 million metric tpy. TAPPI NEWS Time to Renew! Keep TAPPI resources at your fingertips by continuing your membership through 2007. By now you should have already received your TAPPI renewal notice in the mail -- please take a moment to complete the invoice and return it by January 1, 2007 to make sure there is no interruption in your TAPPI member benefits. If you have any questions, or would like to renew by phone, call TAPPI Member Connections at 1-800-332-8686 (US), 1-800-446-9431 (Canada) or +1-770-446-1400 (International) or email TAPPI at memberconnection@tappi.org. New From TAPPI: Making Pulp and Paper Web-Based Modules The Making Pulp and Making Paper Series, a set of 15 web-based modules providing more than 10 hours of self-paced, interactive instruction covering the entire pulping and papermaking process, is now available from TAPPI. Designed for professionals who need a working knowledge of the pulping and papermaking process, this highly interactive series teaches pulping and papermaking terms, concepts, and processes in a self-paced format. Experienced production or technical employees who need a more thorough understanding of a specific area of the operation, especially for cross-training purposes, and new employees of chemical and equipment suppliers and paper industry consultants will also benefit from the series. Topics include an overview of paper and wood; pulp mill overview and environmental strategies; wood prep; chemical recovery and energy production; mechanical and chemi-mechanical pulping; bleaching; recycling and deinking; stock prep; wet end chemistry; coating operation; and towel much more. The series is available on both CD-ROM and in a web-based format that includes learner tracking. The series cost is $435 for one user. A multi-user discount is also available. To order, go online to www.tappi.org or call TAPPI (8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST) at 1-800-332-8686 (US), 1-800-446-9431 (Canada) or +1-770-446-1400 (Worldwide). Notice of TAPPI Test Methods in Ballot The TAPPI Test Method regulations require public review of methods that are up for ballot. Normally this is available to TAPPI members on the web site, but this function is temporarily unavailable due to technical problems with the transition to the new TAPPI web site. This notice shall serve as the public notice of these reviews. Listed below are TAPPI test methods that have recently gone out for ballot to the corresponding Standard-Specific Interest Group (SSIG). The date in parentheses is the closing date for voting. If you would like to review and comment on any draft and are not a member of the corresponding SSIG, you may request a copy of the draft being balloted by writing to standards@tappi.org. T 536 om-02 "Resistance of paper to passage of air (high-pressure Gurley method)" (November 27, 2006) T 1218 sp-02 "Calibration of reflectance standards for hemispherical geometry" (December 4, 2006) T 418 sp-07 "Organic nitrogen in paper and paperboard" (December 7, 2006) T 1219 sp-02 "Storage of paper samples for optical measurements and color matching" (December 8, 2006) New Proposed TAPPI Standards TAPPI is seeking members' help to create a new series of TAPPI Standards related to pulp and paper operator skills and knowledge. New Standard-Specific Interest Groups (SSIGs) are being formed to vote on the proposed standards. These new competency standards result from TAPPI's involvement in npt2, the community college based network for raising workforce competence. TAPPI members who would like to participate in shaping the first standard, focusing on papermaking, should email or phone Bob Caron at bcaron@tappi.org or 770-209-7236 no later than January 15, 2007. CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: 2007 International Conference on Renewable Energy for the Forest Products Industry Advances in renewable energy offer great opportunities for the energy-intensive forest products and pulp and paper industries. Research, development, and implementation projects are already under way in these industries. TAPPI is seeking presenters for the 2007 International Conference on Renewable Energy for the Forest Products Industry. The conference will be held May 10-11, 2007, at the Georgia Tech Conference Center, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Authors interested in submitting presentations for consideration may contact Shelley Sawyers at ssawyers@tappi.org or by phone at 404-760-8110. Presentation titles and abstracts are due December 1, 2006. Final manuscripts are due March 16, 2007. Additional information about the 2007 International Conference on Renewable Energy for the Forest Products Industry is available online. The 2007 International Conference on Renewable Energy for the Forest Products Industry will cover topics such as industry challenges and driving forces; forest biomass availability; how a forest-based biorefinery integrates with, or replaces, forest products manufacturing facilities; key findings from agriculture-based biorefinery projects; and the viability of renewable forest-based fuels and energy. This unique conference will provide opportunities to network with those in the forefront of these emerging technologies. Athens is the European PLACE to be in 2007 May 14-16, 2007 Save this date for the 2007 European PLACE Conference in Athens, Greece, and plan to participate in the premier technical event for the European flexible packaging and converting industry! The European PLACE Conference Planning Committee has already begun developing a conference program that will emphasize product developments, trends, technologies, and new applications in Polymers, Laminations, Adhesives, Coatings and Extrusions. Conference information is available online. Check back for regularly for updates and news. This conference is co-presented by TAPPI and ICE.
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