Under the Wire

Ponderosa Partners Up for Deinking Plant

Ponderosa Fibers broke ground on its paper deinking facility in Northampton, Pa., in the northeastern quadrant of the state, late last month.

The deinking project, to cost around $190 million, is a joint venture between Ponderosa Fibers and Appleton Paper, also in Wisconsin. The mill, slated to be complete by the end of next year, will convert around 560 tons of low grade office paper a day into about 400 tons of deinked pulp.

Most of the raw material for the mill will be supplied by Perry Koplik & Sons, a brokerage office located in New York. Jerry Goodman, with Ponderosa, says the company expects to pull most of the raw material for the mill from the eastern United States.

Appleton Paper, a 25 percent owner of the mill, will use around 200 tons of deinked pulp a day, and Wausau Paper is slated to consume 100 tons of deinked pulp a day from the facility.

Ponderosa also is working on the financing for a proposed project in Wallula, Wash., adjacent to a Boise Cascade mill.

Pure Tech Licenses PET Technology

Pure Tech International Inc., Somerset, N.J., licensed its proprietary polyethylene terephthalate recycling technology to Komatsu Ltd., Tokyo. The technology will be for use and sale in the Far East.

Komatsu, a Japanese conglomerate with interests in manufacturing, electronics, engineering and architectural construction, will use the technology to sort and process a variety of plastic bottles collected in Japan.

The Japanese company estimates the consumption of PET resin for use in the manufacture of beverage bottles stands at 358 million pounds in Japan, with demand expected to grow.

NKK Forms Steel Equipment Co.

NKK Corp., New York, an international steelmaker and worldwide supplier of steelmaking technology, has formed NKK Steel Engineering Inc., Pittsburgh, a wholly-owned subsidiary specializing in the supply of steel melting shop and long products rolling mill equipment to the North American minimill market.

The company is the successor to NKK-United Inc., a joint venture formed in 1992 with United Engineering and Foundry Inc., which owned 40 percent.

Since entering the direct current furnace market in 1985 — through a licensing agreement with Germany's MAN GHH — NKK has secured a total of 23 orders from steelmakers in the United States, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia.

Weyerhaeuser Builds Utah Facility

Weyerhaeuser Co., Tacoma, Washington, has announced it is building a paper recycling center in Salt Lake City, Utah. The plant is expected to be operational by the middle of this summer, and will be capable to handling all available grades of recovered fiber.