Double A installs cellulose line

It targets China with sales of 100,000 tonnes in the first year.

Charnvit Jarusombathi, senior executive vice president of Double A (1991) Plc, said yesterday that the company’s paper plants in Thailand and France produce 1.12 million tonnes per year. Two manufacturing facilities in Thailand have the capacity to produce 599,000 tonnes of pulp per year, mostly for the production of Double A paper. The rest is sold to the paper and toilet paper industries here and abroad. The company realises about Bt1.2 billion a year from pulp sales. 

Because of the tight market for cotton, the main material for the textile fibre industry, Double A sees an opportunity to develop its cellulose product in response to this market. Demand for cellulose now runs about 6 million tonnes per year and is growing. This product will also add value to its pulp operation. 

The new production line at its pulp plant can turn out both paper pulp and cellulose using world-class technology from Finland. The machine will undergo a test run and start producing commercially by the beginning of 2014 with output of 175,000 tonnes per year.

First-year volume of 100,000 tonne of cellulose is destined for China, the leader in the textile fibre industry. Cellulose can be used as substrate for other products such as ropes, film, plastics, colourings and sponges. Double A will use paper trees as the main source of cellulose, same as for paper pulp, because tissues from paper trees have high qualities.