The plant in the Knowsley area, which takes around 300,000 tonnes of chipped recovered wood each year, was forced to shut in early March following a fire in the oil pump room (see letsrecycle.com story).
” There have been major changes to the wood preparation yard and cleaning equipment, where we have streamlined the process and replaced the conveyors. “
– Tony Hackney, Sonae UK
However, speaking to letsrecycle.com yesterday, managing director Tony Hackney explained that factory workers had worked around the clock to re-open the plant last week.
And during the down-time, he revealed that Sonae had taken the opportunity to make some improvements to the plant.
Mr Hackney explained: “During the shutdown the plant has been improved. There have been major changes to the wood preparation yard and cleaning equipment, where we have streamlined the process and replaced the conveyors. We are hoping to increase our activity by about 5% and to reduce the two week period when we normally close over the summer to one week.”
The Sonae UK managing director said the work formed part of a 3.5 million investment to improve productivity at the mill by 10% over the next 12 months.
“This year we have 3.5 million to spend on process improvements and de-bottle-necking to lead to higher productivity,” he said.
Suppliers
Sonae UK's managing director explained that all of Sonae's suppliers of chipped wood had been kept informed about the factory's position throughout its closure.
“We have a one-to-one relationship with our wood suppliers and have kept them in the loop,” he said. “The closure put significant pressure on wood recyclers and as it is critical to ensure people stay in business we continued to take wood off key suppliers throughout our closure.”
Sonae UK is now using up its stockpile of wood and is expecting to be taking in as much recycled wood as normal by next week.
Mr Hackney said: “We are the biggest user of recycled wood in the UK and we intend to stay in that position.”
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