1. Europac Group/ Portucel Viana, Portugal:
“Refining is very important for us”
Portucel Viana Mill, part of the Spanish Eu-
ropac Group, and GL&V Sweden realised a
major refining project to save energy and
increase the pulp strength in the mill’s re-
fining processes. The partnership provided
excellent results at a very critical process
stage in Portucel Viana’s marketing mis-
sion.
The Europac Group is a leading compa-
ny in the packaging sector in the Iberian
Peninsula which is dedicated to the elabo-
ration of paper, corrugated cardboards and
packaging to offer the widest range of
products to its customers. The integration
of the company’s activities makes it possi-
ble to cover the whole corrugated card-
board production chain. Europac Group re-
lies on 29 industrial installations and some
1,300 employees in Spain, Portugal and
France. The aggregate sales in 2007
equalled EUR 526 million.
Portucel Viana is the major paper mill
in the Group to produce kraftliner. It is lo-
cated in the city of VIANA do Castelo in
Portugal. The mill started up in 1973 with
a capacity of 136,000 tonnes/a. Since
then the mill has changed rapidly over the
years. Today Portucel Viana produces Por-
toliner brand kraftliner, basis weight 115–
300 g/m2
, some 310,000 tonnes/a. It has
310 employees.
Portucel Viana is a fully in-
tegrated paper mill with contin-
uous pulp cooking, a recycled
fibre plant, recovery island,
power boiler (second under
construction), one gas and
one steam turbine to produce
27 MW of power which is sold
outside the mill and one paper
machine with auxiliary equip-
ment. Its raw materials include
pine, eucalyptus wood and old
corrugated containers.
The mill is located close to the sea in
an area where forestry has a very impor-
tant role in the local economy. The raw
material mix for kraftliner is 70% virgin fi-
bre (80% pine and 20% euca) and 30% re-
cycled fibre. The power production raw
material mix is 15% biomass, 37% natural
gas and 48% black liquor.
Portucel Viana has increased its pro-
duction capacity step-by-step by imple-
menting various technological improve-
ments. The latest investments in 2008
increased the kraftliner production capaci-
ty to 320,000 tonnes/a. The overall capac-
ity of this product in Europe is one million
tonnes. Their kraftliner brand Portoliner is
marketed mainly to Spain (its main mar-
ket), Portugal, Germany, France and Italy.
In late 2009 the mill will introduce a
new product. Recycled fibre use will in-
crease in the future. To reach its commer-
cial targets the mill has invested in short
circulation and the paper machine. The re-
fining system has been rebuilt and upgrad-
ed and the paper machine has been up-
dated with a new topformer.
“The challenge is that to be able to
achieve this new product you need to im-
prove the furnish. Europac is not so well
known in the marketplace but it will be in the
future,” says José D. de Castro Carrero,
Managing Director of Portucel Viana.
Your obvious partner…
in pulp and paper

2. 2
Portucel Viana chose GL&V as its
partner to rebuild and upgrade its
refining systems.
“The refining rebuild was part of the whole
paper making investment. The main tar-
gets were to achieve a higher paper pro-
duction capacity and at the same time
save energy in the refining process as well
as increase the pulp strength. In 2005 we
decided to increase the refining capacity, it
was a necessity,” explains José D. de Cas-
tro Carrero.
“We turned to the technology providers
and after a very tight competition GL&V
won this project. We decided to co-operate
with GL&V to rebuild this refining system
because the overall power consumption in
the whole refining process was very high.
“So we replaced the old Beloit-Jones
refiners in the top layer refining system
with new models and bought four new 42”
DD®
4600 units from GL&V. All of them are
working more or less at full power.
“The old systems were operated by
two lines with six 34” refiners. Even with
this power consumption there was a lack
of refining capacity. At the same time no-
load power was very high – more than 30%
of the total power.
“We also made changes on the bottom
ply refining line in order to decrease no-
load power. We changed three old refiner
rotors from 46” to 42” utilising GL&V’s re-
finer upgrade package DD®
4600. We
wanted to have similar refiner plates on
both top and bottom plies in order to save
Picture above
Pedro Campos: “During
the time we were
installing refiners one at a
time we were at around
200 kWh/paper. Now we
are around 120 kWh/
tonne of paper so we have
saved 80 kWh/tonne of
paper.”
Picture next
Specific energy consump-
tion per tonne of bone dry
tonne of fibre and per
tonne of paper.
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
Jan.06
Feb.06
Mar.06
Apr.06
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Aug.06
Sept.06
Oct.06
Nov.06
Dec.06
Jan.07
Feb.07
Mar.07
Apr.07
May.07
June.07
July.07
Aug.07
Sept.07
Oct.07
Nov.07
Dec.07
Specific Energy Consumption
kwh/BDt kwh/t paper

3. 3
in storage expenses. Now we are running
top and bottom plies with the same disk
pattern. It’s important to us because we
have what we call a swing refining process.
We have three available refiners for the top
ply even if only two are working and three
refiners for the bottom ply plus one swing
refiner. We can run it, if there are any prob-
lems, either for the top or bottom ply.
“We made these changes step-by-step
and we could see with every refiner we
were installing that energy consumption
was decreasing. The
change was very
clear and the sav-
ings in energy and
money can also be
measured in euros.
“You may ask
why the refiner is so
important for us.
The main property
for our type of prod-
uct is the strength,
so we are looking at
the strength, mainly
using burst and SCT
testing. When we
get the pulp from
our digester plant
with its poorly devel-
oped strength prop-
erties, we have to
refine the pulp. It is
very demanding. We
have to refine a
great deal to
achieve higher
strengths,” says
Mário Santos
Amaral, Production Manager.
“Our target is to reach around 6
kPam2
/g on the top ply at a Schopper-
Riegler value of 35 and we can show you
the results. This was the target when we
turned to GL&V. All the same targets ap-
plied to the bottom ply but we left the SR
value because the bottom ply represents
more or less the overall grammage. The
bottom ply represents more or less 70% of
the basis weight so we are not able refine
a great deal. We cannot develop the
Schopper-Riegler value too much because
then we would have problems with the
grammage on the forming section. It is a
very heavy ply. We want to reach a SR val-
ue of 25 for the bottom ply with slightly
less fibre development.
We can see that we have improved the
strength properties and energy savings by
a factor of 2.5. The payback time of this
project is less than two years.
“That’s why the refining is very impor-
tant for us. It’s the most important
strength development tool that we have.
“The refining process is also important
because we do not have any size presses.
We only have cationic starch on the stock
but not surface sizing. At the moment we
do not refine the recycled fibre. However,
we are working with GL&V on how to pro-
ceed in this area.”
GL&V: Can you tell us about the rebuild
project – changing the new rotor
systems with GL&V?
“This was our first experience with GL&V’s
splined rotor systems. In 2005 we upgrad-
ed, step-by-step, all three of our old 46” re-
finers with 42”DD®
4600 Equa-FloTM
up-
grade packages. After that we decided to
install totally new 42”DD®
4600 refiners on
our top-plyline. However, when we had both
the rebuild project and a new installation
going on at the same time there was no
need to shut down the paper machine dur-
ing this operation. On the contrary it was
very easy to achieve,” says Mário Amaral.
“Before the refining rebuild project we
used more or less 300 kWh power per
bone dry tonne of pulp for the top ply with
these systems and now we use 230 kWh.
This curve shows us the specific energy
consumption before the project as 320
kWh/bone dry tonne of pulp. During the
time we were installing refiners one at a
time we were at around 200 kWh/paper.
Now we are around 120 kWh/tonne of pa-
per so we have saved 80 kWh/tonne of pa-
per.” states Pedro Campos, Paper Ma-
chine Superintendent.
GL&V’s scope of delivery:
- Four 42”DD®4600 refiners
- Three 42”Equa-flo splined upgrades for
upgrading existing refiners to DD®4600
refiners
- Refiner plates and spare parts
- Split delivery during 2006 and 2007
- Start-up services

4. For more information visit us at www.glv.com
GL&V Pulp and Paper Division:
Experience – Innovation – Solution
GL&V Pulp and Paper, a division of the Canadian based company GLV Inc., is a global
enterprise in technology and processes for manufacturing of pulp and paper as well as in
production and treatment of fresh, process and waste waters.
The GL&V Pulp and Paper group is one of the largest suppliers of pulp and paper production
equipment and a world leader in equipment rebuilds, upgrades and optimization.
GL&V Pulp and Paper group provides complete solutions for production and management
of fresh and process waters as well as for efficient treatment of waste waters and effluents in
the pulp and paper industry. The GL&V technology and processes are designed for accomplishing
the lowest capital and operating experience combined with the highest feasible total efficiency of
the supplied components and process systems.
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