Emerson Receives $5.3 Million Project To Automate New Pulp Mill in Chile
Tuesday October 22, 2:00 pm ET
Celulosa Arauco S.A. will utilize Emerson's PlantWeb(R) architecture in the largest-ever FOUNDATION(tm) fieldbus installation in the Pulp & Paper industry
biz.yahoo.com
ST. LOUIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 22, 2002-- Contracts worth $5.3 million (US) have been awarded by Celulosa Arauco y Constitucion S.A. to Emerson Process Management, an Emerson business (NYSE:EMR), for process automation systems, equipment and engineering services for what will be one of the world's largest pulp mills.
Arauco, based in Santiago, Chile, is one of the world's largest forestry companies in terms of plantation size, lumber processing and production of market kraft pulp.
Already under construction near the city of Valdivia, Chile, the new mill will use a state-of-the-art process control network with Emerson's PlantWeb® digital plant architecture. The PlantWeb architecture will include more than 3,500 FOUNDATION(tm) fieldbus instruments and the DeltaV(tm) control system, making it the largest such installation of the fieldbus technology in the pulp and paper industry. Project design and execution services will be provided by Emerson.
Located 100 miles south of Santiago, the new mill will produce between 550,000 and 600,000 tons of bleached softwood and hardwood market pulp per year from pine and eucalyptus logs beginning in late 2004. Excess electricity generated at the mill will be sold to the Chilean national power grid. Arauco expects the entire project to cost $1.2 billion (US). A similar pulp mill to be built near Itata, Chile, is in the planning stages.
Arauco currently operates four pulp mills in Chile, with a combined capacity of 1.5 million metric tons per year, as well as seven sawmills. In addition, the company owns and manages 595,000 hectares of Chilean timberlands.
The selection of Emerson followed an extensive search to choose the best, proven new technology that would serve Arauco's requirements today and in the future, along with the project execution services needed to ensure a successful, on-time and on-budget project. Design requirements for the new mill included:
Low investment cost without sacrificing quality
Use of proven process technology and equipment
Efficient consumption of wood, energy and water
Low air and water emissions in agreement with the environmental permit.
Emerson's predictive maintenance software will be used to communicate with the field instruments installed in the mill to help insure high plant reliability and availability, and performance. Emerson is also expected to provide up to 21,000 hours of engineering services for installation, configuration and startup of the process automation system.
"The leading-edge PlantWeb digital plant architecture will make positive contributions to meeting all of Arauco's key design parameters," said John Berra, executive vice president of Emerson with responsibility for the process management business. "As the largest application of the PlantWeb technology in the pulp and paper industry to date, this project is a very significant example of the worldwide acceptance of PlantWeb digital plant architecture. It will serve as a benchmark for future investments in automation by this and other industries." |
