THE ECHO - Ferrostaal

MAN FERROSTAAL ACQUIRES RWE’S PULP AND PAPER BUSINESS
PULP: A PRODUCT WITH PROSPECTS
THE ECHO 1/2006 23
In April 2006, MAN Ferrostaal acquired the Pulp and Paper segment of RWE Industrielösungen GmbH, including 25 employees, to
boost its own plant construction business.
In addition to recycled paper, pulp is the most important raw
material for paper. Demand is growing continuously by approximately
5 million tons per year. Suitable locations for new plants
are Latin America and Southeast Asia markets – in which MAN
Ferrostaal already has a strong presence. Only a few suppliers
worldwide are capable of building this type of plant. MAN
Ferrostaal is one of them, not least because of its strong financial
background and its experience in project financing.
LONG-STANDING COLLABORATION
In April 2006, MAN Ferrostaal therefore acquired RWE’s Pulp and
Paper segment of RWE. In addition to the 25 RWE employees,
expertise, references and projects as well as sales offices in
Thailand and Vietnam were transferred as part of the acquisition.
MAN Ferrostaal can now also rely on the expertise of KSH
Solutions Inc. in Montreal, RWE’s Canadian engineering firm
specialising in pulp and paper. KSH and MAN Ferrostaal have
agreed on long-term, exclusive cooperation.
MAN Ferrostaal’s entry into this business area is accompanied by
favourable conditions. Global economic growth has led to a strong
global demand for pulp. In order to meet this demand, one or two
new large plants will have to begin production each year.
The raw material (wood), the pulp plant in Stendal (Germany), pre-packaged pulp
The global consumption of paper products is growing by two to
three percent annually, with the largest growth in Asia (China,
India, ASEAN nations). This results in a growing demand for pulp
as the raw material for all types of paper, also with a growth of
approximately 2.5 percent per year. The global demand for fresh
pulp is growing by approximately 10 million tons per year (230
million tons in 2005). A large part of this annual growth is
accounted for by “market pulp”. This is pulp that does not go into
the processing of paper in integrated plants. Instead, it sold freely
on the global market by the manufacturers.
This provides a sound basis for future success, according to
Wolfgang Marschewski, who is responsible for the pulp plant business
at MAN Ferrostaal: “New pulp plants only become profitable after
they have reached a certain minimum size, and project financing
plays a crucial role in this. In these kind of projects, only a
financially solid plant construction partner like MAN Ferrostaal
will be considered as a general contractor.”
GREAT POTENTIAL
MAN Ferrostaal sees the greatest potential for the construction of
new pulp plants in humid climate zones in Brazil, Uruguay and
Chile, and in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Here, the
raw material (wood) is grown in large plantations (approximately
250,000 hectares) for approximately seven to ten years. The