Lenzing’s subsidiary PT. South Pacific Viscose (SPV) officially started up its fourth production line at the beginning of April. A total of about $150 million made the production line the group’s biggest individual investment project in recent years. Its annual nominal production capacity of 60,000 tons of viscose fibers for textile and nonwovens applications raises SPV’s total annual capacity to 220,000 tons and makes it Asia’s biggest viscose fiber production site and the world’s second-biggest producer, after the parent plant at Lenzing with 255,000 tons per year.

Peter Untersperger, chairman of the Lenzing management board, said
at the inauguration in Purwakarta: “Indonesia and the whole of Asia are Lenzing’s single most important sales market. The extension of PT. South Pacific Viscose is another milestone for the Lenzing Group. It again marks our commitment to our customers in this part of the world. And it is, moreover, an essential part of our corporate strategy. With the completion of all current investment projects in 2012, about half of the group’s fiber production capacity of then 378,000 tons will be located in Asia. It is our goal to reach the million-ton production mark by successive expansion steps and more than half of our total cellulose fiber production will then be generated in Asia.“

The new jumbo line took two years to complete and required the extension of existing industrial infrastructure, including a state-of-the-art 21 megawatt power station with multi-fuel fluidized boiler and attached steam turbine, a sulfuric acid plant with a daily capacity of 300 tons, a CS2 recovery plant, as well as process and waste water facilities. SPV consequently conforms to the latest environmental standards.

Lenzing is also expanding and modifying its plants in China and Austria.