COMUNICADO DE STORA ENSO

Stora Enso's major investment at Langerbrugge in Belgium on

schedule

HELSINKI, 18 Dic. (PRNewswire) -

Following the investment decision taken in August 2001, Stora

Enso is restructuring its newsprint production by building a new

production line at Langerbrugge in Belgium that will use recovered

paper as raw material. The new production line, which will also

include a 75 MW biofuel power plant and a deinking plant, will start

up in June 2003. As part of the production development programme, the

company will as previously announced rebuild Langerbrugge's paper

machine no. 3 to manufacture SC paper instead of newsprint and

increase its annual capacity from 115 000 tonnes to 165 000 tonnes.

This rebuilding will be completed by the end of 2002. The total

investment cost of the whole project is about EUR 500 million.

In line with its strategy for printing paper, Stora Enso's asset

improvement programme will continue to increase the competitiveness

and specialisation of the paper machines and eliminate production

that will not be profitable over the long term. This investment

programme will meet the ROCE requirement of 13 per cent set by the

company and will be financed from cash flow.

The programme also includes shutting down two paper machines:

Langerbrugge's 120 000 tonnes per year SC paper machine no. 2 in

Belgium and Summa's 110 000 tonnes per year newsprint paper machine

no. 1 in Finland. These two machines will be shut down when the new

machine starts up.

Construction of the new production line has progressed on

schedule, and main machine suppliers have been selected. The new

paper machine will be supplied by Metso Paper, and the deinking and

pulping suppliers will be Voith, Andritz-Ahlstrom, GL&V, Lamort and

Valmet Raisio. The biofuel power plant has been ordered from Austrian

Energy, which is an Austrian subsidiary of the German Babcock Borsig

Power GmbH. The main consultant for the project is Jaakko Pöyry Oyj

of Finland. Earthmoving at the site began at the end of November and

work on foundations for the building will start in January.

On completion, paper machine no. 4 at Langerbrugge will be one of

the world's largest newsprint paper machines, with a capacity of

about 400 000 tonnes per year. The production line is expected to

reach full capacity in 2005. The speed of the paper machine will be

2000 m/min and the wire width 11.1 metres. It will produce 45g/m2

newsprint, which will be marketed as one of Stora Enso Newsprint's

products. Provisionally, it is intended to sell some 80 per cent of

the output in Europe. About 10 million tonnes of newsprint are

consumed in Europe per year, and Stora Enso's market share is

approximately 25 per cent.

The deinking plant will utilise the latest technology for

environmentally friendly production of pulp using less water. The aim

of the investment is to achieve highly profitable manufacture of

paper with low production costs by using, for example, a tandem press

for de-watering the paper web, single-wire technology in drying and a

closed paper web throughout the whole paper machine. The biofuel

power plant consists of a state-of-the-art fluidised-bed boiler,

which includes flue gas cleaning in accordance with strict EU

regulations.

One aspect of Stora Enso's fibre strategy is to recycle fibre

close to the source of this raw material and customers. The new

production line will use only recovered paper as its raw material,

most of which will be collected from within a distance of 300

kilometres, an area where nearly 80 million people live. On

completion, the Langerbrugge mill will use about 700 000 tonnes of

recovered paper per year.

Following the project, the Langerbrugge mill will provide about

450 permanent jobs. During the project about 1100 people will be

working at the site on construction, installation and commissioning,

including contractors and suppliers.

The project management members have been assembled from within

Stora Enso's international organisation, and most of them have

experience of several paper machine builds or rebuilds. The project

includes its own quality programme, and know-how and benchmarking

from previous projects will be utilised in all sectors.

For pictures, please visit our image bank at:

http://www.storaenso.com/pressimage.asp?...

http://www.storaenso.com

The Newsprint Division's sales in 2000 was approximately 1 800

million euros. It employs some 5400 people and has thirteen paper

machines producing newsprint at eight paper mills in Belgium,

Finland, Germany and Sweden. The annual production capacity is nearly

3.2 million tonnes. The Stora Enso Langerbrugge N.V. mill is in Gent,

Belgium. Paper production there started in 1932. In 1990 the mill was

acquired by Stora, which in 1998 became part of Stora Enso. The

Newsprint Division produces newsprint, book paper, directory paper

and mechanical paper. Its main market is Western Europe.

Stora Enso is an integrated forest products company producing

magazine papers, newsprint, fine papers and packaging boards, areas

in which the Group is a global market leader. Stora Enso also has

extensive sawmilling operations. Stora Enso's sales total EUR 13

billion and annual paper and board production capacity about 15

million tonnes. Some 45 000 persons are employed in more than 40

countries and the company's shares are listed in Helsinki, New York

and Stockholm.

Source: Stora Enso

Contact: Kari Vainio, Executive Vice President, Corporate

Communications, tel. +44 7799 34 81 97. Stig Andersson, Mill Manager,

Stora Enso Magazine Paper, Langerbrugge Mill, tel. +32 9 257 74 00.

Sami S. Pitkänen, Project Manager, L4 Project, tel. +358 40 500 1988.

(44492)

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