With an annual capacity of 750,000 tones, StoraEnso made the decision in 2022 to transform the remaining idle paper mill at the Oulu site into a highly adaptable consumer packaging board line for folding box board (FBB) and coated unbleached kraft (CUK). The project is proceeding in accordance with the initial budget of around EUR 1 billion and schedule. It is projected that the new packaging board plant would achieve EBITDA breakeven by the end of 2025 and full capacity in 2027, when yearly sales should reach about EUR 800 million.
Renewable packaging is the biggest development area for Stora Enso. By enhancing the customer offering in the expanding FBB and CUK categories, the investment further advances the Group’s goal. Targeted markets include beverage multi-packaging, frozen, chilled, and dry food, mainly for consumers in North America and Europe.
“The new line will be the most modern and cost-efficient in Europe. Through this investment, our Oulu unit will become Stora Enso’s largest production facility, an integrated mega-site, focusing on future packaging board grades and featuring a flexible production setup. This will strengthen profitability and competitiveness for our consumer board and containerboard offerings. It will also enable us to optimise production at our other sites to unlock further profitable growth, for example in liquid packaging board at our Skoghall site in Sweden,” comments Stora Enso’s President and CEO Hans Sohlström.
Unbleached pulp, kraftliner, and consumer board will be produced in reels and sheets at the Oulu site once this investment and the previous conversion finished in 2021. A total of about 650 people are employed at the Oulu production facility.
The amount of wood used annually at the Oulu facility will rise by around one million cubic meters, to about 3.5 million cubic meters. The production site will employ pulp from Stora Enso’s Veracel site in Brazil and Enocell site in Finland, in addition to local wood supplies. With the announced purchase of the Junnikkala sawmills, the long-term, affordable supply of raw materials including biomass, pulpwood, and wood chips will be significantly strengthened.
At the core of Stora Enso is a forest, and we think that anything that is made now from fossil fuels may be made tomorrow from a tree. We are among the world’s largest private forest owners and the top supplier of renewable products for packaging, biomaterials, and timber construction. Stora Enso employed almost 19,000 people in 2024, and the company’s total sales came to EUR 9 billion.
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