Partnership in practice: Romania
Södra has recently been collaborating with the Romanian tissue producer, Pehart Tec Grup, to help the company gain a competitive edge, including optimising its refining process and saving energy.
Pehart Tec Grup is a small company with big ambitions. From its two mills in Romania, the company makes around 100,000 tpy of jumbo rolls and finished tissue products, both for the domestic market and other SEE countries (Hungary, Greece, Serbia, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Austria, Poland). Its own brands, Pufina and Alint, are well established on the local market, but Pehart Tec Grup is looking to go further, constantly seeking ways to optimise its products and processes.
As the company’s main supplier of NBSK, Södra works in close partnership with the company to offer more than just pulp. Peter Carlsson, Technical Product Manager, and Narcis Mesic, Södra’s refining specialist, recently spent several days with Pehart Tec Grup conducting a refining audit and then delivering a programme of step-by-step recommendations the mill could adopt to optimise its refining. Narcis says that refining is a very important step in the production process as it is the opportunity to optimize product properties and energy consumption, yet it is often overlooked or not upgraded for years.
Peter explains: “We have been analysing samples of the mill’s fibres in a variety of scenarios and under different conditions. The aim is to help Pehart Tec Grup save on energy costs by optimising refining but also to see how they can really tweak their processes to deliver even better final properties for the tissue grades they produce.”
Narcis: “We use our wealth of knowledge, not just of refining, but also of refining equipment, to help the customer make the most of their own systems. Close contact with refiner and refiner filling suppliers means we are able to offer customers valuable insight and advice on what is often a complex and poorly understood area. Our experience is that a lot of issues in the mill can be solved by asking the right questions and we do ask a lot of questions during our visits. One of Pehart Tec Grup’s aims is to increase production speed so we looked at how the choice of pulp and refining can be tweaked to improve dewatering at the paper machine and increase production while preserving product specifications. We have worked hard in our labs and used our modelling tool (the Virtual Refiner), but the biggest job is still left for the mill where processes and equipment will be updated to meet their new demands. It’ nice to think we have played a part in this.”
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Subjects: Pulp
