Another facility recycling paper waste into corrugated board is planned at Austrian Prinzhorn Holding’s paper mill in Dunaújváros. The project worth EUR 200 million (approx. HUF 50 billion) will create 260 new jobs. Implementation is conditional on the availability of electricity and steam for production from the investor’s own power plant.
Although progressing moderately, the project is already in the stage of licensing and drafting of contracts – says Harald Ganster, managing director of the holding’s paper mill segment (Hamburger Containerboard Division). Funds are provided partly from own resources and from bank loans, as well as from state subsidies, available in Hungary for such projects, which would however account only for a small part of the total budget. With the negotiations still underway, no announcements as regards the amounts in question are made until the contracts are concluded. Another issue yet to be decided involves the selection of the partner to participate in the company which is to build the coal-fuelled power station.
“Availability of electricity generated in own facility is indispensable for the project to succeed” says Mr. Ganster. It is because electricity is way more expensive in Hungary than in Austria for example. For the time being, the Dunaújváros plant of Dunapack buys electricity and steam from the neighbouring Dunaferr, which costs EUR 90 for each ton of paper (that sells at a price of EUR 400) all the while the Pitten facility (Lower-Austria) pays EUR 40 for the same amount.
The next steps involve licensing and contracting with a competent energy company, presumably a foreign company also present in Hungary.
If everything goes well, operation in the new paper mill may start in 2010. The facility will have an annual output of 350 tons of corrugated paper, which, on account of its thinness and lightness, will be suitable for packaging small products. Raw material and waste will partly be supplied from the company’s current collection network, which will be simultaneously expanded. 400 thousand tons of recycled paper will be necessary for producing the planned quantity, with the missing quantity to be supplied by another segment incorporating foreign units of the Prinzhorn Group. The boxes are then produced from the corrugated board by Packaging, the third large group of the holding (incorporating the subsidiaries of Dunapack in the Ukraine, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria and Croatia).
“Waste paper collection is extremely important and not only for the manufacturer” says Mr. Ganster. Under EU law, Hungary is obliged to recycle certain amount of waste. The collection network attached to the proposed facility will help comply with this legislation.
Owned by Prinzhorn Holding and managed wholly by Thomas Prinzhorn, Dunapack has three production facilities in Hungary: Dunaújváros, Nyíregyháza and Csepel. The holding has total sales revenues of EUR 850 million.
Júlia Szászi
In: Népszabadság
10 September 2007, 14:37 hrs.
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