The work was part of a €25m investment at Savonlinna, the Kaukas sawmill and the Aureskoski further processing mill announced in 2009 in UPM’s restructuring of its Finnish plywood and timber operations.
The site has a new production hall with new equipment capable of producing 120,000m3 of high quality birch plywood a year. The energy and heating infrastructure was also rebuilt.
"The energy that is needed in manufacture comes almost entirely from renewable energy sources. The wood waste is used for energy production so the manufacturing does not produce any solid waste," said UPM executive Jussi Vanhanen.