The site in Braviken, Norrköping, at three years old is one of the only greenfield mills built in the last 10 years in Sweden. It was opened to make Holmen Timber a total supplier of sawn timber, with construction timber in spruce from Braviken and pine joinery timber from Iggesund.
Braviken will now be converted to also process pine, beginning next year. Holmen said it will provide greater flexibility in the supply of raw materials and allow wider procurement of raw materials locally. The catchment area will be reduced, bringing down transport costs.
Braviken was built to produce 550,000m3 of spruce construction timber primarily for the Scandinavia and European markets. New capacities of spruce and pine were not revealed.
At Iggesund Sawmill, production capacity will be increased by 15% to 400,000m3 through a redesign and expansion of the timber sorting section. This investment will also be implemented in summer 2015.
