Congratulations to Norske Skog on receiving the Overall Project Award at the Tasmania Engineering Excellence Awards 2014 Gala Dinner in Hobart this evening.
I was honoured to present the award to Norske Skog in recognition of the company’s $84.8 million project at its Boyer mill, which involved the conversion of one its two newsprint machines to allow for the production of Light Weight Coated (LWC) paper.
It now means that glossy paper for catalogues and magazines that was previously imported to Australia, can now be sourced from Tasmania.
Judged highly in all categories, the LWC Conversion Project was commended for its complexity and execution, as the mill remained at 100% operation capacity for all but three of the 19 months that it took to complete.
The state-of-the-art conversion involved almost 200 Tasmanian firms and $40 million in local expenditure, and was delivered on time and on budget.
This is a fine example of engineering excellence that has substantial flow on effects for the Tasmanian economy and I commend this important regional employer for their innovation and ingenuity as well as the local staff that managed the project.
The Tasmania Engineering Excellence Awards had a record number of entries this year, totalling more than $1 billion in investment, reflecting the high calibre and capability of the engineering industry in Tasmania and the important part it plays in growing our economy.
Elise Archer, Speaker of the House of Assembly
