OREANDA-NEWS. December 17, 2010. Vyborgskaya Cellulose has recently completed the construction of the world’s largest wood pellet plant. The plant is located near the town of Sovietsky in the Leningrad region of Russia. The production is expected to start in the second half of December 2010. All equipment has been supplied by Andritz ltd of Graz Austria. The annual production capacity of the plant is 1 million tons of wood pellets. This is at least twice as large as any other pellet plant currently in existence, as the company said in a press release received by Lesprom Network.

The main clients for the wood pellets produced in Vyborgskaya will be the major European power generators as well as CHP (combined heat and power) plants in Scandinavia. However the plant is also designed to be able to produce wood pellets of the very highest quality. Therefore premium quality wood pellets for the small scale residential pellet users will also be manufactured in Vyborgskaya.

JSC Vyborgskaya cellulose produces unbleached softwood sulfite pulp. This production is equipped by Enso-Gutzeit and includes wood-processing shop, acid-cooking shop, washing and wood-pressing shops, wood pulp screening. Sulfite-cellulose production has 5 digesters. The production processes up to 1 000 cubic metres of wood. Alkaline solutions are used in production of fodder protein yeast and lignosulfonates.