Pixelle to restart paper machine in Chillicothe, Ohio

Pixelle Specialty Solutions LLC, a Pennsylvania-based manufacturer of specialty papers in North America, announced plans to restart a paper machine in the Chillicothe, Ohio 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, the company said. 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,” said Timothy R. Hess, Pixelle’s President and CEO. “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.

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