Brazil. Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social

The loan is granted to BNDES for financing the construction of a greenfield pulp production facility in the municipality of Ortigueira in the state of Paraná, Brazil. The project, titled “Puma”, is carried out by Brazilian paper producer Klabin S.A., and is located near Klabin’s existing paper mill in the town of Telêmaco Borba.

The pulp mill’s annual production capacity will amount to 1.1 million tonnes of bleached eucalyptus-based hardwood pulp, intended for both export and domestic sale, and 400,000 tonnes of pine-based bleached softwood pulp, in part to be used to produce Brazil’s first domestic fluff pulp.

The project further includes the construction of a biomass electricity generation facility, a wastewater treatment plant, 42 kilometres of 230 kV transmission line to connect the facility to the national grid, 23 kilometres of secondary railway and several storage facilities. The plant’s biomass facility will run on by-products of the pulping process and generate an excess of renewable energy available for sale to the national grid.

Klabin S.A. is Brazil’s largest paper producer and exporter. In addition to selling timber logs, it manufactures packaging paper and board as well as corrugated packaging and industrial bags. Klabin runs 14 industrial plants in Brazil and one in Argentina.

BNDES is a 100% state-owned federal public company associated with the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade. Its main objective is to provide long term financing that contributes to the development of the country and the improved competitiveness of the Brazilian economy.

Several Nordic key-suppliers cater to the project and cooperate throughout the construction phase. This creates positive knowledge and technological spill-over effects, strengthening the Scandinavian pulp and paper cluster linkages and offering growth opportunities. Reference projects such as this are crucial to uphold technological leadership in NIB’s member countries. Maintaining a centre of expertise by creating synergies will allow the industry to face competition on growth markets.

Greenfield pulp production will impact the environment negatively through land transformations, discharges of wastewater, emissions to the air and noise pollution. Using the biomass by-products of the pulping process as fuel will, however, allow the facility to be self-sufficient on renewable energy and to sell excess production.

This project has been categorised A, and information on NIB’s considerations about financing the project was made public on NIB’s website for 30 days in November-December 2014.

The environmental repercussions of pulp production are discharges of nutrients, organic matters and halogens to water. Emissions to air mainly consist of combustion pollutants like sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxides.

In line with NIB’s environmental requirements, the project foresees the construction of a wastewater treatment plant that will conduct primary, secondary and tertiary treatments prior to discharge. Wastewater levels are predicted to be below average.

Chemical recovery processes to reclaim cooking chemicals spent in the pulping will be employed, while combustion gases will be treated with electrostatic precipitators to control emissions. The environmental impact assessment carried out during the project permission process suggests that the mill’s atmospheric emissions will not have a significant negative impact on the regional airshed. The forestry assets allocated for the project consist of approximately 107,000 ha.