Kraft mill now in shutdown mode

The kraft mill is shut down for the next two weeks as crews carry out the annual scheduled maintenance program.
“We started going down late Friday night and we should be coming back up late on the third of October,” mill manager John Harrison noted this morning.
“Depending on the scope of recovery boiler work we have to do, it runs anywhere between 10 days and two weeks, so it’s a normal shutdown for us,” he added.
Harrison said there’s nothing unusual about the shutdown, adding the “big job” remains boiler recovery work.
“There’s always boiler recovery work,” he remarked. “So every year, we do a complete set of testing on the recovery boiler to check for tube thickness, and based on what we find one year, we go in the next year to do replacements of tube sections.
“There’s an ongoing program that keeps us ahead of the curve on boiler wear,” he explained.
“We also do inspection of the lime kiln and if we have to do replacement of the brick inside, we do that,” Harrison continued. “We go into virtually every tank in the kraft mill and do inspections and do repairs.
“A lot of it is doing inspections to make sure we keep ahead of things,” he stressed. “It’s a process that’s hard on equipment over time.”
The last kraft mill shutdown was in May, 2006, but Harrison noted the mill wanted to get the shutdown period back into the fall and so delayed this year’s past the usual 12-month rotation.
“We got the usual crews in to do boiler maintenance, and to do inspections and repairs. There’s a crew that helps with the high-pressure cleaning work,” noted Harrison, adding activity may look busier than usual due to the crews working on the biomass boiler site.
As well, mill operating crews still are at work with inspections, clean-ups, and lockouts.
In related news, work on the biomass boiler site is continuing. “We’re on schedule, we’re on budget, things are going according to plan,” said Harrison.
The piles have been driven and foundation poured, with the steel framework to be erected later this fall.
While there will be no winter site work, spring will see an intense period of construction, with a completion date of October, 2008.