Russian PM calls for building new pulp-and-paper mills, making own logging equipment

YEKATERINBURG. July 11 (Interfax) - Russia's forestry industry needs to modernize in order to increase production of goods with higher added value, including by building modern pulp-and-paper mills, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said.

"In the forestry sector it is necessary to modernize facilities for deeper wood processing, build modern, eco-friendly pulp-and-paper complexes," Mishustin said at the Innoprom-2023 exhibition on Monday.

Several major projects to build new pulp-and-paper facilities are now being implemented or are planned in Russia. Ilim Group , for example, is preparing to put a pulp-and-paper mill with design capacity to make 600,000 tonnes of kraftliner per year into operation in Ust-Ilimsk, Irkutsk Region in September. Segezha Group is modernizing the Segezha and Sokol pulp-and-paper mills in Karelia and is considering building a pulp-and-paper mill in Krasnoyarsk Territory (Segezha East), but it has abandoned plans to build a similar mill in Karelia (Segezha West) that was designed based on European equipment.

Mishustin also noted problems with equipment for Russia's forestry industry, particularly the shortage of logging equipment.

"It is also important to establish our own production of a sufficient quantity of logging equipment. Virtually all industry companies have faced a shortage of it after the departure of western manufacturers," Mishustin said.

Since the imposition of sanctions against Russia, leading international manufacturers John Deere, Ponsse and Komatsu have announced the suspension of logging equipment shipments to Russia, although the latter continues to make small amounts of equipment at its Yaroslavl plant until June. Russia's forestry industry is highly dependent on imported equipment and machinery, including from "unfriendly" countries, industry players have noted. The head of the Logging and Forest Product Exports Association of Irkutsk Region, Yevgeny Bakurov earlier estimated the dependence on imported logging equipment at 80-90%.