Fortress Paper Ltd.

The installation of four 110-ton boilers on site at the Thurso pulp mill this week not only marks a crucial step in converting the mill to a full-time specialized dissolving pulp producer, it also marks the beginning of some other notable changes for the Quebec facility. Construction on a brand new 25-megawatt cogeneration plant will begin this summer. Capturing excess heat and steam from the process of making dissolving pulp, the cogeneratio...

Two weeks ago, we wrote about two large digesters arriving in Thurso by barge after a near two-month trek from Finland.  The digesters will be installed at Fortress Paper's Thurso pulp mill, and will be key to converting the mill from a northern bleached hardwood kraft pulp producer to a specialized dissolving pulp producer. The digesters, in which wood pulp is cooked and compartmentalized into cellulose, are a key element in the process of ...

From contributing to a more environmentally-friendly energy economy, to saving company’s money by using in-house energy, to generating revenues by selling off excess energy, co-generation has undoubted benefits for pulp mills around the world. A new article in Biomass Power & Thermal adds a new benefit to the pot: energy efficiency. “The ability to produce electricity on-site rather than being reliant on the grid not only provides...

With the Canadian forestry sector in decline, pulp mills are feeling the pangs of an industry that is seeing some of its biggest outputs – such as newsprint – fall to the wayside. But all hope is not lost, says Thomas Beckley, a professor at the University of New Brunswick’s Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management. The key to a modern successful forestry sector is diversity, he says. “There is strength and resilience in di...

This week, barges carrying more than 100 tonnes of Finnish-made equipment turned heads as they floated up the Ottawa River on their way to Thurso, Quebec. The barges – which are transporting digesters – left Finland in early August and going to be installed at the Thurso mill over the coming months and are the first major steps taken to convert the mill from a kraft pulp producer to a dissolving pulp producer. The full conversion is exp...

With their Thurso pulp mill in the midst of being converted to a dissolving pulp producer, Fortress Paper Ltd CEO Chadwick Wasilenkoff traveled to China last month to meet with potential buyers of their soon-to-be available new product. The region, he said, was a prime market for the dissolving pulp – a product used in the textile industry for the creation of rayon. “The largest viscose producers (in the world) are expanding their capacit...

Driven by the imperatives of globalized economics and digital technology, Ottawa's pulp-and-paper heritage has been reduced to a remnant. The forestry industry that built the Ottawa-Gatineau economy appears to be on its last legs. Hammered by the Internet's growing grip on personal communications, the rich Canadian dollar and intense competition, the forestry industry continues to slash operations in the hopes of finding a smaller, profitab...

Located in the Papineau Regional County Municipality in the Outaouais region of Western Quebec, about 35km from Gatineau, QC on the Ottawa River, the Thurso pulp mill is a staple in Thurso, Quebec. The Thurso mill dates back to the 1950s and was a major force in the pulp and paper industry in the Quebec/Ottawa region. Today, it continues the tradition. Employing nearly 300 people, the pulp mill currently manufactures high quality northern b...

Many pulp mills around the world rely on the benefits of cogeneration – the recycling of steam and heat to produce electricity – to help reduce waste, save money and increase efficiency. At the mill in Thurso, Quebec, for example, small-scale cogeneration is already taking place. Black cooking liquor is burned off, generating heat, electricity and/or stream for the mill, steam gathered from the recovery boilers used during the pulping proc...

One of the main products created from dissolved pulp is rayon. While rayon is predominately used in the textile industry to make silk-like clothing, it is also used for plastic products such as cellophane and film. Aside from these products, however, rayon filament is also used in a product many of us use every single day: tires. Using rayon in tires is not a new development. Prior to “the nylon revolution” (the period when tire manufac...