Husum Pulp mill, co-owned by Metsä Board and the Swedish forest owners’ association Norra Skog, is an integrated board and pulp mill producing folding boxboard, uncoated white kraftliner and bleached chemical pulp. The mill is committed to Metsä Board’s target of achieving completely fossil-free mills and products by the end of 2030. As the production processes become more stable, so will the product deliveries, adding more value for Metsä Boards’ customers around the world.
In 2019, the mills’ recovery boilers’, steam systems’ and turbines’ life cycle had come to an inevitable end. Instead of just a partial upgrade, it was decided the mill would be completely renewed. To complete the first phase of the project, replacing these functionalities, Metsä Board needed a reliable partner for the instrument and ICT installations, including the instrumentation and cabinets.
Metsä Board entrusted the project to Insta, as the company had already proved its skills by doing excellent work back in 2015, when the mill was converted from paper to board production with Valmet.
Comprehensive installations and seamless co-operation
Insta carefully familiarized itself with the mill’s renewal plan, concurrently allocating resources and best practices. The installation consisted of the following operations:
cable routing
installation of equipment (transmitter, network switch, casing, and cabinets)
impulse piping
cabling
coupling and
testing.
Immediately after setting up the site, Insta studied the different departments and found out the locations of process equipment and facilities related to instrumentation and ICT work. At the beginning of the project, factory downtime was scheduled, during which installations were made in the existing departments. After this, the team started the instrumentation installations of the turbine (TG4) and the ICT installations of the turbine, recovery boiler, control room and various departments. After the pipe bridges between the departments were completed, the team assisted another contractor in the installation of the wire frame shelves, thus allowing the fiber cabling to be started.
The installation of the equipment cabinets was carried out as soon as the premises would allow. After that, the fibers were connected to the cabinets, which opened the connections between the departments. CAT cabling was carried out in the control room building, according to the completion of the premises. The instrumentation installations were carried out according to the progress of the process — in many different locations and sometimes several times under the conditions of mechanical progress.
The team performed shielding and impulse piping, equipment installations, cabling, connecting, as well as welding and testing of fiber cables simultaneously in different locations. The agility of work pairs moving from one spot to another allowed good progress and work quality in every area.
Towards mill efficiency and sustainability
The instrument and ICT installations are an important step in the mill renewal that will increase the folding boxboard capacity at the Husum mill by 200,000 tons a year, cost efficiently and with minimal environmental impact. The new recovery boiler and turbine are expected to increase the pulp mill’s bioenergy production and improve the integrate’s energy self-sufficiency. This is especially important during the energy crisis in Europe. Concurrently, thanks to the modern technology, the mills’ emissions will decrease.
Between six and twelve people worked on the site in different stages of the project. The team followed the progress of the project closely with the customer, so that work could be done in those locations where it was possible at any given time — plans for progress and working methods were made in good cooperation to achieve an optimal schedule.
Robert Andersson, Project Engineer of Metsä Board, described Insta's working methods as careful and flexible. Thanks were also given to Insta's way of keeping the customer informed about the progress of the work.
"The quality of both the installations and products is flawless. They also handled even the challenging situations very well, doing everything they could to overcome the challenges related to the pandemic. For example, they helped the other parties on the site when needed, and did a lot of extra work, such as additional cable routing, installation of the vibration monitoring system delivered by a third party, UPS cabling, and project management". says Andersson.
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