Mercer Stendal starts Optimized Pulp Cooking Plant

Mercer Stendal continues investing in environmental and water protections with further improvements to its production facilities. With an investment of more than 50 million euros, this is the company’s largest optimization project to date since the start of production in 2004. Today, Mercer Stendal commissioned an important building – the optimized cooking plant. For this occasion, the Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt, Dr. Reiner Haseloff, visited the pulp mill in Arneburg.

The Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt, Dr. Reiner Haseloff (centre), during a short plant tour of Mercer Stendal, herewith (from left to right) André Listemann, Managing Director Mercer Stendal; Wolfgang Beck, Managing Director Mercer Holz; Sabine Teucke, Head of Technology; and Wolfram Ridder, VP Business Development Mercer International.

The project, initiated two years ago, aims to optimize the pulp cooking process so that larger quantities of industrial wood are processed into biogenic products with fewer wastewater loads generated. In addition to improving Stendal’s environmental performance, the company hopes this will help solve the current problem of increasing damaged wood.

In the long term, this will put Mercer Stendal in a stronger position, as the movement in industry towards decarbonization and manufacturing of climate-friendly products based on better sustainability is a generational task. The current project includes further steps, such as an energy-efficient redesign of the lime kiln and added measures to safeguard the increased production level. These are important milestones in the ongoing development of the factory into a centerpiece of the industrial bioeconomy in Germany.

The Prime Minister (right) gives the signal to colleagues in the plant’s control room to start the commissioning process; (left) Sabine Teucke, Head of Technology at Mercer Stendal.

Mercer Stendal is an operation of the Mercer International Group. Mercer operates wood processing plants primarily in Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, as well as in Canada and Australia. 

Mercer Stendal produces pulp, bioenergy and various biochemicals from about 3.5 million solid cubic meters of softwood annually. The company employs about 455 people, including 30 trainees. Mercer Stendal’s future pulp production capacity will be up to 740,000 tonnes per year. The biomass power plant at the site is one of the largest of its kind in Germany with an installed electrical capacity of 148 MW.