Metsä Fibre has today, on 15 September 2019, delivered an EIA report of the Kemi bioproduct mill to the Lapland Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment (ELY Centre).
The Lapland ELY Centre will put the EIA report drawn up by Metsä Fibre on public display for the purpose of opinions and statements. During this time, the assessment programme is available in Finnish online at https://www.ymparisto.fi/keminbiotuotetehdasYVA. All documentation related to the EIA process of the Kemi bioproduct mill can be found at the same address in the joint website of Finland’s environmental administration.
The EIA procedure has two phases. In the first phase, the party responsible for the project draws up the assessment programme, and in the second phase, it implements the assessments and draws up an assessment report on them. The environmental impact assessment procedure concerns the environmental impact of the bioproduct mill planned for Metsä Group’s existing mill area in Kemi. The results of the impact assessment will be taken into account in the ongoing planning and decision-making related to the project. No decisions concerning the project will be made during the EIA process. The purpose of the process is to produce information that supports decision-making and to improve citizens’ access to information and their influencing opportunities. Sweco and its partners serve as Metsä Fibre’s environmental consultants in the EIA process.
The next public event concerning the EIA process will be held on Tuesday 1 October 2019, 5:30-8:00 p.m., in the large auditorium of the Cultural Centre of Kemi, at Marina Takalon katu 3, Kemi. The event will be streamed live on Metsä Group’s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/metsagroup. You can find the video of the earlier EIA event, held on 22 May 2019, at the same address.
For further information on the bioproduct mill project as a whole and the ongoing pre-engineering, which the EIA process is also part of, go to Metsä Fibre’s website at https://www.metsafibre.com/en/about-us/Kemi-bioproduct-mill/Pages/default.aspx.
Metsä Fibre will file the environmental permit application concerning the Kemi bioproduct mill with the Regional State Administrative Agency for Northern Finland this autumn.
If materialised, the approximately EUR 1.5 billion bioproduct mill planned by Metsä Fibre, part of Metsä Group, would be the largest ever forest industry investment in Finland. The mill would produce bioproducts and its pulp capacity would be 1.5 million tonnes a year. The mill would be built to the existing mill area and it would replace the pulp mill currently operating. The final investment decision will be made in the summer of 2020 at the earliest, in which case the bioproduct mill could start up during the first half of the 2020s.