JSC Volga, one of Russia’s leading paper producers, is accelerating its activities in the domestic market by the launch of a new investment project for the production of container types of paper and cardboard on the total sum of 5 billion rubles.
According to general director of the enterprise, Sergei Pondar, in order to provide production with timber, it would be necessary to expand the allowable cut at least 2 times. He also added that despite the pandemic, the company has been able to significantly improve its performance in recent years.
JSC Volga CEO Sergey Pondar in an exclusive interview commented
– In 2020 we have increased the volume of production to 276 099 tons of product. It’s the company’s absolute record since 2015. The plant’s share in the all-Russian paper production volume increased to 21%. The EBITDA indicator under IFRS amounted to 1,5 billion rubles, revenue from product sales is 9.4 billion rubles, net profit – 0.9 billion rubles. The total capacity of the line is about 50 thousand tons per year. I think that by the end of 2021, our output will increase by about 15-17%. In terms of diversification, we have seriously increased the segment of packaging paper grades, and expanded it at the expense of heavier grammage paper grades. At the beginning of 2020 we produced interliner and fluting, now we are focused on testliner, which is actively purchased by Russian manufacturers of corrugated packaging.
Recently Volga JSC completed another investment project worth 1.5 billion rubles for the production of thermomechanical pulp (TMM). As a result of the project, the production was expanded by 60,000 tons annually, with 240 new jobs being created.
By: Eugen Gerden
