LEIPA Group CEO Peter Probst: “We look forward to growing successfully with our customers and partners. The demand for White Top Liner remains consistently high and the trend is rising. Prices are at a high level as well. These factors result in excellent conditions for the market launch of the PM 5.” As an international market leader LEIPA will have developed a one-stop shop for their customers with the PM 3 and PM 5, offering an annual total capacity of 700,000 tons of coated and uncoated White Top Testliner. Christian Schürmann, COO of LEIPA Georg Leinfelder GmbH said: “The entire project team has done a great job rebuilding the PM 5. We will produce a state-of-the-art testliner on this machine – the world’s most powerful of its kind – and start with our first deliveries in April.” Click Read More below for additional information.

Graphic Packaging Holding Company (NYSE: GPK), today announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Graphic Packaging International, Inc., will close its coated recycled paperboard mill in Santa Clara, California by year end. This decision was made as a result of a thorough assessment of the facility's manufacturing capabilities and associated costs in the context of the Company's overall mill operating capability. The closure will affect approximately 120 employees.

Pratt Chairman Anthony Pratt has been named as the 6th most influential person in the world of pulp, paper and packaging by our industry’s leading information provider. RISI compiled the annual power list for the July/August issue of Tappi’s Paper 360 magazine after polling pulp and paper industry experts from around the globe to determine the top 50 industry executives wordwide. Anthony, who ranked 23rd last year, shot up 17 places as his U.S. company continued to show rapid growth. The entry reads: “The company’s go-getter global chairman received a standing ovation from President Donald Trump at an event in New York City in May after pledging to invest in the US. ‘I’d like to pledge another US$2 billion over the next 10 years, doubling our rate of investment, to create an additional 5,000 high-paying manufacturing jobs mainly in the Midwest,’ Pratt said. During the past couple of decades, the Australian billionaire has spent about US$2.5 billion building Pratt Industries into the sixth largest US containerboard producer, with four recycled containerboard mills and more than 60 box plants generating US$3 billion in sales. The Midwest has been a major area of recent investment, but recent speculation has been on Pratt Industries’ future expansion plans in the West, where the company bought Robert Mann Packaging. Pratt has talked of plans to build a US$1 billion corrugated box business in California and possibly add a mill on the West Coast. More recently, he mentioned plans to build a ‘high-tech, robotic’ box plant in California for more than US$70 million that could be capable of producing 135,000 tons/yr of corrugated.”