THE ECHO - Ferrostaal

24
projects & contracting
01 02
01. The pulp plant in Stendal, Germany
02./03. The Estonian Cell pulp plant in Estonia
conditions are completely different in Europe, where the “crop”
cannot be harvested before 35 years in Germany and 60 in
Finland.
In the past, some pulp plants practised deforestation wherever
and however they pleased in densely forested areas. As a result,
the entire industry was regularly the object of criticism by conservationists.
This situation has now radically changed. Today,
investors can only build new plants if they use wood produced by
sustainable forestry. In other words, they must prove that they are
managing their raw material in a sustainable way, i.e. growing new
trees to replace those that are cut down. Otherwise, no bank will
even consider financing their project. MAN Ferrostaal fulfils this
requirement for all of the very promising RWE projects it has
acquired.
STATE-OF-THE-ART PLANTS
The essential features of pulp manufacturing can be illustrated
using the example of the state-of-the-art pulp plant in Stendal in
Saxony-Anhalt in Germany. The most important component is
the “fibreline” production line, which accounts for one third of the
total cost of constructing a new plant. The machinery and
equipment used there extract most of the lignin from the fibrous
raw material (hardwood or softwood). Lignin is a chemical
compound that gives a tree its strength and durability. At the end
of the process, after cleaning/sifting, bleaching and draining,
the pulp is ready to be used as a preliminary product for further
processing into paper.