Pixelle Specialty Solutions, a manufacturer of specialty papers in North America, has announced plans to restart a paper machine in the Chillicothe, OH, USA, facility. The company is investing $21 million to upgrade and restart the #24 paper machine (PM24) and plans to hire 52 full-time employees to operate and maintain it.

Pixelle will also fill 50 temporary positions to support construction and engineering requirements related to the restart.

“The current supply-demand balance in the market and our Ohio facility’s competitive, integrated cost structure has afforded us the opportunity to restart paper machine #24 (PM24) at the Chillicothe mill. This rebuilt machine will add 75,000 tons per year of capacity to serve our customers in the food packaging, commercial inkjet and other specialty paper segments. These are growing attractive markets where Pixelle has leading positions,” states Timothy Hess, Pixelle’s president and CEO.

He adds, “We would also like to acknowledge JobsOhio for an economic development grant that will support an employee training program to provide workers with the skillsets required to operate the paper machine safely and efficiently.”

PM24 was originally built as a coated printing papers machine, upgraded most recently in the 1990s. Pixelle idled the machine in 2017 based on declining supply-demand market dynamics at the time. Several upgrades in the current rebuild will enable Pixelle to produce an attractive product mix for its customers.

Pixelle expects the machine to be fully online shipping quality specialty papers in early first quarter 2023.