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First Paper Produced At SAICAs New Partington Recycled Paper Mill

24 January 2012

SAICA's new recycled paper mill in Partington has produced its first paper ahead of schedule, following successful trials of the company's Paper Machine 11 (PM11)

The production of SAICA's first sellable paper at Partington marks the return of the paper industry to Trafford, and the beginning of a new chapter in British papermaking.

On Sunday 15 January, PM11 successfully produced paper for the first time, with paper running through the whole machine and paper reels being processed along the whole line.

The first sellable paper reels were produced and tested, leaving the mill and reaching the first customers shortly afterwards.

The £300m recycled paper mill - SAICA's first in the UK and the first new containerboard paper mill in the UK for decades - will produce 400,000 tpa of 100 percent recycled containerboard each year.

Commenting on the success, Francisco Carilla, industrial projects director said: "We're obviously delighted to reach this significant milestone - the company's first reel of sellable recycled paper made in the UK from UK recovered papers. However, this is not the end. We continue to work hard to improve the running of the machine, increase its speed, broaden the range and perfect the paper we produce at Partington.

Federico Asensio, deputy managing director, SAICA PAPER commented: "The cooperation between the project and operations teams on getting PM11 to this stage has been a success. "I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everybody involved in the project for their professional and personal efforts; especially to those employees we've temporarily relocated for training, construction, assembly and startup purposes.

"Our commitment to our customers means that we will continue to work hard in our state-of-the-art mill to deliver containerboard that sets the standard for performance papers in the UK and Europe." PM11 is the final part of SAICA's plan to become an integrated player in the UK,providing a closed-loop solution for the manufacture of environmentally friendly performance papers and corrugated packaging.

www.saica.com

Darrel Moore