Stora Gruvön is a paper and pulp plant located in Grums, about 350 km west of Stockholm. The plant belongs to Stora Paperboard, part of the Stora group. Total annual production amounts to 600 000 tonnes, split between 500 000 tonnes of board, and 100 000 tonnes of saleable pulp.

Business aims
"Stora Gruvön shall be a development-oriented company producing high quality kraft paper for packaging, based on virgin fibre."

History
The mill was built in 1931 and has always been in the forefront of technical development. Some important dates:
1964 - one of the first paper mills to use computers for supervising operations.
1965 - the first in Sweden to produce duplex board for Tetra Pak.
1972 - the first in Europe to use oxygen bleaching.
1988 - the first paper mill in the world to receive ISO 9001 quality certification.
1997 - Gruvön brings into operation one of the world´s "quietest" debarking machines.

Raw materials
Manufacture of bleached and unbleached pulp uses solely virgin fibres from the nearby forests. The reason for not using recycled fibre is that many of the products made by Stora Gruvön come into contact with foodstuffs. It is therefore preferable to have a totally pure product.
One year´s raw material consumption is equivalent to a 250 km long, 3 m wide and 4.5 m high woodpile. Reforestation is assured for each tree that is felled, by means of such measures as planting new trees and natural rejuvenation by seedlings or seeds. The current rate of growth of new forest raw material considerably exceeds in fact the amount that is felled.

Products
Stora Gruvön has four machines producing packaging board, and two more manufacturing raw materials for corrugated board. Certain papers are calendered to improve the print surface or to achieve special characteristics.
The largest machine at Gruvön is 105 metres long, 10 metres high and 7 metres wide. In 36 hours it can produce enough board to cover a 7 metre wide road from Milan to Copenhagen - almost 1600 km.
Most of the production goes to western Europe, with about 12 000 tonnes of paper and pulp shipped out each week. Around 35% goes by boat and the rest by rail.

The environment
An important part of the day-to-day work is to minimise the effect of the plant's operations on the environment. For example, as far back as 1990 Gruvön completely stopped the use of chlorine gas for bleaching.
A long-term task is to continue to bring production into ecological balance with Nature. The aim is therefore to successively enclose the manufacturing process cycles and to complement this with efficient cleansing of external effluents.

Number of employees: 1,250

Head office:
Stora Gruvön
Box 500, SE-664 28 Grums, Sweden
Tel: +46 555 410 00; Fax: +46 555 410 85

For further information please contact:
Torbjörn Joghed, Divisional Manager
Tel: +46 555 410 20
Fax: +46 555 410 85
Katarina otz Norell, Information Manager
Tel: +46 (555 410 84
Fax: +46 555 614 65
E-mail: katarina.otznorell@stora.se