The new peroxide bleaching plant being built at the Abitibi-Consolidated mill here is entering the final phase of construction well ahead of schedule.
“Things are getting along pretty quick. Construction is getting close to completion,” project engineer Bernie Martens said.
“We should be starting our tests next week and go into production next month,” he added.
The $15-million plant will allow the local mill to make more high-quality paper, leaving other mills to take up production of the less valuable dark paper.
“It will allow us to make more brighter paper and what will happen is we will make less of the less white paper which will go to other mills which are presently making newsprint . . . like Kenora or Thunder Bay,” Martens explained.
The plant, including a 100,000-gallon bleaching tank, originally was expected to be up and running by early June but is already entering the final stages and, barring any unforeseen problems, should be completed in a matter of weeks.
“We’ll be into making some [test] product by early April but we hope to be in production by the middle of April to the beginning of May,” said Martens.
“We’ll be checking each and every piece of equipment and checking all the electrical circuits individually,” he added. “It takes some time and there’s always the possibility you could run into some problems at that point.”
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
