Valmet — Agreed to acquire Tieto's TIPS pulp, paper and fibre software business (MES plus Order-to-Cash): ~€32M 2025 revenue, installed at ~300 pulp and paper sites worldwide, web-based SaaS with generative-AI features; it will sit in Valmet's Process Performance Solutions segment, price undisclosed, closing expected Q2 2027 (Valmet/PR Newswire, PULPAPERnews)
Valmet — Will supply a complete 350 BDt/d BCTMP line (HT-CTMP technology) to ITC's Bhadrachalam mill in India, with a BCTMP evaporation plant, flash drying and baling, Valmet DNA DCS and flow control, a spare parts package and a new white-liquor disc filter for the recausticizing line; startup Q2 2028, order booked in Q2 2026 (PULPAPERnews)
Lindner — Launched the Urraco ECO mobile twin-shaft shredder for waste wood, green waste and biomass fuel preparation — an entry-level version of the Urraco EVO with up to 30% lower operating costs and a full cutter replacement in under 2.5 hours (Bioenergy Insight)
Paper Arabia — The Dubai paper-industry trade show has been postponed to 2027 (new dates to be announced), with organizer Al Fajer citing regional circumstances and international participants' concerns about travel and business conditions (PULPAPERnews)
Paper & Pulp Mills
Update: A third wrongful-death suit over the Longview tank failure was filed Oct. 23 in Cowlitz County Superior Court by the families of Dillon Miller, 27, and CJ Doran, 26, naming Nippon Dynawave and former owner Weyerhaeuser; it alleges a "run-to-failure" policy and that the tank kept operating after an inspection contractor found it unfit for service, and that Weyerhaeuser sited the tank near work areas without adequate secondary containment (Spokesman-Review, Paper Advance)
James Cropper raised FY2027 adjusted EBITDA guidance to £10.3–11.3M (from £9.4M) after a stronger-than-expected first half to Sept. 26, driven by its recovering Paper & Packaging division; detailed interim results are due in November (Paper Advance)
Forestry & Timber
Bearlodge Forest Products will close its Hulett, Wyo. sawmill and pallet mill on Oct. 31 after nearly five decades, citing high input costs, limited labor and housing and sustained downward pricing — ending one of Wyoming's few pallet manufacturing operations (Timber Processing); separately, Hulett timber patriarch James S. Neiman, whose family company runs forest-products operations in Hulett, Spearfish, S.D. and Gilchrist, Ore., died at 96 (Cowboy State Daily)
Canada's revised Work-Sharing rules (announced Oct. 22 and welcomed by FPAC) temporarily remove the equal-hours requirement, extend tariff-related measures to March 31, 2028, cut the minimum agreement from six weeks to four (extendable to 152 cumulative weeks), add up to $1,000 per employee for training, and let firms that need to retool or diversify qualify without a drop in business activity (Paper Advance)
Japan's LDP land-and-transport division approved a bill revising the 1951 government-office fire rule so smaller national offices such as job centres and tax offices can be built in timber; sponsors want it lodged by mid-November and passed in the current Diet session, and Japan's CLT projects are heading for a record 429 in the year to March 2027 (Wood Central)
Update: Forest & Wood Communities Australia has lodged an FOI request with the Clean Energy Regulator seeking the additionality, timber-displacement, leakage and conflict-of-interest evidence behind registration of NSW's 531,000+ ha Improved Native Forest Management carbon project, citing Forestry Australia's warning that the method could overstate abatement by 40–100% (Timberbiz)
GWMI's latest market analysis says European and North American sawmills are cutting shifts to keep inventories down while buyers resist large commitments, affordable logs grow scarcer and operating costs rise, with no broad international demand recovery to lean on (GWMI)
Wood Pellets & Biomass
Foresta NZ is seeking ~NZ$400M for a torrefied wood-pellet and bio-chemicals plant on a 10 ha Pūtauaki Trust site in Kawerau: forest feedstock is secured through PF Olsen, a non-binding term sheet with Genesis Energy covers pellet supply to Huntly power station, fast-track consenting is under way, with groundbreaking planned for 2027 and production by 2029 (200 construction and 70 permanent jobs) (Farmers Weekly)
