The Covid-19 crisis is having an impact on Arauco's pulp expansion project in Chile. The expanded mill will start-up several months later than planned, Euwid reports.
Celulosa Arauco will start up its expanded pulp mill in Arauco around six months later than originally planned. According to a company spokesman, this delay is attributable in the first place to the coronavirus pandemic.
Arauco had announced the MAPA (Modernización y Ampliación Planta Arauco) project in July 2018. It provides for the modernisation and expansion of the Arauco plant in southern Chile by investing a total of just under $2.4bn - to date the largest investment in the company's history.
Arauco plans to shut down Line 1, which offers a capacity of 290,000 tpy of eucalyptus pulp, and replace it with a new line for bleached eucalyptus pulp (Line 3), which will have a capacity of around 1.56 million t. Moreover, the project also includes the modernisation of Line 2, whose bleached softwood kraft pulp (BSKP) capacity amounts to 510,000 tpy.