First Shipment of Pulp from UPM Paso de los Toros Mill Sailed from Montevideo

May 30, 2023 - UPM and Saga Welco AS announce that the loading of the first shipment of pulp from the state-of-the-art UPM Paso de los Toros pulp mill has been successfully completed at UPM’s new deep sea pulp terminal in Montevideo, Uruguay.

The M/V Saga Faith sailed on Friday, 26 May, carrying a full ship load of about 50,000 tonnes of UPM Euca pulp to Asia, where the vessel is expected to arrive around mid-July.

A commemorative ceremony was held 23 May to see the loading operation of the vessel at the UPM pulp terminal in the port of Montevideo with the attendance of Uruguay’s Minister of Transport, José Luis Falero.

UPM’s pulp terminal in the port of Montevideo started operations in October 2022. The highly specialised, fit-for-purpose pulp terminal operates 24/7 with an annual operating capacity of over 2 million tonnes of pulp and 80 ships per year. The terminal employs 100 people, reaching 200 during the loading and unloading of cargo ships. The terminal includes a large storage warehouse of over 50,000 square meters with capacity to store 150,000 tonnes of pulp, a control room, logistics spaces and offices. UPM operates the terminal on a 50-year concession.

The USD 240 million port investment is a fundamental part of UPM’s USD 3.47 billion growth investment in Uruguay that includes besides the port also the Paso de los Toros pulp mill, which started operations 15 April 2023, and investments in local facilities in Paso de los Toros.

Saga Faith is the most modern open hatch box shaped drybulk carrier equipped with two travelling gantry cranes each having the lifting capacity of 42 tonnes and outreach of 9 metres. She was built in 2019 at Oshima Dockyard in Nagasaki, Japan, and has 55,807 tonnes of dead weight capacity, and her length overall is 199,9 metres.

UPM and Saga Welco AS are partners with a long-term maritime transport agreement for the transportation of the UPM Euca pulp from the ports of Nueva Palmira and Montevideo to customers around the world.

Saga Welco AS is an international shipping company that offers high quality solutions for the transport of forest products and bulk cargoes. The company has its headquarters in Norway and several regional offices in strategic locations around the world. Saga Welco operates the world’s largest fleet of open hatch vessels with travelling gantry cranes tailor made for carriage of unitized wood pulp.

SOURCE: UPM Pulp