Company briefs - 2004-07-01

  • 2004-07-01
Soprano, a Finnish marketing communications firm, has signed a preliminary contract for the purchase of City Paper, an English-language periodical published in Estonia. The parties have not yet disclosed the price of the deal, which was to be finalized in June. The first issue of City Paper was launched on July 30, 1991, a month before Estonia declared the re-establishment of its independence. It was one of the first private media publications of its time and today is mainly distributed in the Baltic countries and Finland.

The owners of the Estonian Cell facility being built in Kunda will buy most of their installations from the Andritz international technology group stationed in Graz, Austria. The monetary value of the order will make up nearly 40 percent of the project's total volume, which is worth more than 100 million euros. The pulp mill will use Andritz's P-RCTM APMP technology, which is more energy saving and does not contain sulphuric compounds. The intended annual output of the mill, planned to go into operation at the end of 2005, is 140,000 tons of bleached pulp suitable for the manufacture of high-quality paper.

Lithuania's glass producer Panevezio Stiklas (Panevezys Glass), controlled by Polish Warta, has discovered new export niches in Moscow and Ukraine. "We have discovered new and lucrative markets in Moscow and Ukraine," Loreta Stankeviciene, Panevezio Stiklas CFO, told the Verslo Zinios daily, adding that the net earnings of the glass producer came to 258,000 litas (74,783 euros) in the first five months of this year. The first of the company's glass containers were shipped to a Moscow-based spirits plant in May. In 2004 exports of bottles to Moscow should reach 700,000 euros, as prescribed in the contract.

Klaipedos Nafta, the state-run oil products terminal that intended to launch crude exports for the first time this summer, has had to postpone the ambitious plans. "We have no crude now. Russia has built two new oil terminals, so it may shun from exports via Klaipeda. Moreover, I do not think that crude from Kazakhstan will reach us either. We were two years late. Then we had oil, but did not have the terminal," said Evaldas Bivilis, Klaipedos Nafta chairman and economic adviser to the government. Klaipedos Nafta previously projected to handle approximately 2 million tons of crude per year. On June 29, Klaipedos Nafta was inspected by a state committee that will commission two new crude and two new diesel fuel reservoirs.