Stora Enso about shipping in the Gulf of Bothnia
The renewable materials company Stora Enso has been working with Svenska Orient Linien (SOL) for over ten years. The new WALLENIUS SOL shipping company enables a more sustainable and economic way of shipping, from the Baltic sea and the Gulf of Bothnia.
STORA ENSO SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT Knut Hansen welcomes the new constellation on the market. He sees the advantages of combining the experience from SOL with the muscle and technical expertise of Wallenius, and believes that by cooperating in transport the companies can reduce the fluctuations in the demand for transport — thereby achieving a more even logistics chain.
Knut Hansen looks forward to cooperating with competitors: “We compete with our products, not with our logistics. This is a situation where everyone wins”.
The economies of scale with larger, flexible ships in combination with LNG propulsion contribute to the triple bottom line and Stora Enso’s sustainability goals.
Stora Enso’s challenge to sourcing materials in the northern part of Scandinavia consists of both the distance and the conditions in the area.
Stora Enso is a global company, operating in renewable materials such as pulp, paper, packaging and wood.
The company produces over 15 million tonnes of pulp, paper and board annually and their own mills and production facilities produce roughly five and a half million cubic metres of sawn wooden products every year.
Knut Hansen knows there are big challenges facing operations in this area.
“Stora Enso’s challenge to sourcing materials in the northern part of Scandinavia consists of both the distance and the conditions in the area,” he says, continuing:
“Not many people know this, but the shipping distance from the Gulf of Bothnia to Great Britain is the same as from Canada to Great Britain.”
To make matters worse the area suffers arctic conditions four months of the year. But the transports still need to be on time, and shipping stands for the majority of these transports, especially those from the Finnish forests.
The new vessels, with ice class 1A Super, can traffic the area all year round, and the scale of the vessels enables the possibility of sharing a sustainable transport solution for both the paper and the pulp industries, as well as the rest of the raw-material based industries, for a long time to come.
Forestry companies in brief
Stora Enso
Stora Enso is a renewable materials company, developing and producing solutions based on wood and biomass for a wide range of industries and applications all over the world. Its solutions are found in segments such as building, retail, food and beverages, manufacturing, publishing, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, confectionary, hygiene and textiles.
- 26,000 employees in over 30 countries
- Sales in 2018: EUR 10.5 billion
BillerudKorsnäs
BillerudKorsnäs is a Swedish forest industry company established in November 2012 through the fusion of Billerud AB and Korsnäs AB. It develops and sells cardboard for food and consumer packaging. It also sells kraft liner for the manufacturing of corrugated cardboard and develops, designs and manufactures new fibre based kraft and sack paper.
- 4,400 employees
- Sales in 2018: EUR 2.3 billion
Metsä Board
Metsä Board is a leading European producer of premium paperboards, including folding boxboards, food service boards and white kraft liners. Its light-weight paperboards are based on pure fresh fibres and are developed for consumer goods, retail-ready and food service packaging. It focuses on creating even lighter and better paperboard solutions for brands of the future.
- 2,350 employees
- Sales in 2018: EUR 1.9 billion
