Gothenburg, Sweden, September 10, 2007 - Akzo Nobel's Pulp and Paper Chemicals business, trading as Eka, has agreed to supply chlorine dioxide and to operate and maintain the bleaching chemicals plant at a Swedish pulp mill operated by one of the world's biggest pulp and paper manufacturers.
The agreement with Stora Enso will see Eka Chemicals introduce its pioneering chlorine dioxide concept at the Skutskär mill located in the middle of the country. This latest deal continues to build on the global success of the unique initiative, which involves running bleaching chemicals manufacturing inside a customer's premises while remote monitoring the whole process from a main operations center.
"Developing solutions that benefit our customers is vital to the success of our business," said Eka Chemicals General Manager Jan Svärd. "The chlorine dioxide concept is attracting major interest because not only does it offer our customers cost and efficiency benefits, but it also allows them to concentrate on the their core operations."
Added Tommy Möller, Stora Enso's production manager at Skutskär: "We have entered this agreement to make use of Eka Chemicals' cutting-edge skills in this particular field and thereby increase the efficiency of our plant. The deal will also contribute to our efforts to lower our total manufacturing costs."
The chlorine dioxide plant at Skutskär will be constantly remote-monitored by Eka Chemicals staff located at the business' operations center in Sundsvall, with the day-to-day running being handled by the site's own personnel. Certain modifications to the production plant at the Stora Enso facility will also be required to help ensure high productivity.
Eka Chemicals now remotely monitors more than 15 such chlorine dioxide plants around the world at customer sites located in Sweden, Brazil, France and Finland. The business is also currently building a Chemical Island for the total chemicals supply to a new pulp mill being constructed by Votorantim Celulose e Papel in Brazil.
Note to editors
Akzo Nobel is a Fortune Global 500 company and is listed on Euronext Amsterdam. It is also included on the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes and FTSE4Good Index. Based in the Netherlands, we are a multicultural organization serving customers throughout the world with coatings, chemicals and human and animal healthcare products. We employ around 62,000 people and conduct our activities in these four segments, with operating subsidiaries in more than 80 countries. Consolidated revenues for 2006 totaled EUR 13.7 billion. The financial results for the third quarter will be published on October, 23, 2007.
Internet: www.akzonobel.com
Eka Chemicals, with 2,900 employees in 30 countries, is a business unit within Akzo Nobel. Turnover 2006 amounted to 963 mEUR. Eka Chemicals is a leading supplier of bleaching chemicals, paper chemicals and systems to the pulp and paper industry throughout the world, and supplies certain special chemicals to the pharmaceuticals industry, water treatment, the electronics industry etc. www.eka.com
Not for publication - for more information
Eka Chemicals AB, Sweden, tel. +46 31 58 70 00
Johan Landfors, general manager Pulp and Paper Chemicals Europe
Erik Widén, communications manager
