When a paper company installs a new machine, the older machines do not suddenly stop mattering.

In some ways, they become more important.

The new line establishes a higher benchmark for:

quality,

energy efficiency,

automation,

runnability,

and production cost.

The question then becomes what to do with the assets already operating beside it.

Naini Papers is confronting exactly that issue at its integrated mill in Kashipur, Uttarakhand.

AFT has received an order to supply four MaxEdge double-disc refiners, with two units each for Naini’s PM1 and PM2. Delivery is scheduled for December 2026, with AFT also providing commissioning and start-up support.

At first glance, this is a relatively modest stock-preparation investment compared with installing an entirely new paper machine.

But the timing makes it more interesting.

Naini commissioned PM3 in 2025, a Valmet-supplied machine with 125,000 tonnes per year of installed capacity designed for premium coated and uncoated specialty papers, including flexible packaging, labels, wrappers and pharmaceutical applications. Naini describes PM3 as its newest and most advanced paper machine.

Now the company is returning to PM1 and PM2.

That makes the refiner order part of a broader industrial question:

How do you keep older paper machines economically relevant after adding a much more modern production line?

One answer is to improve what happens to the fibre before it ever reaches the headbox.

Refining is where fibre cost becomes paper performance

Refining is easy to underestimate because it happens upstream of the paper machine.

The refiner does not form the sheet.

It does not press it.

It does not dry it.

But it changes the fibre properties that determine how effectively all those downstream processes work.

Mechanical refining can increase fibre flexibility and fibrillation, improving the ability of fibres to bond with one another.

That can influence:

tensile strength,

burst strength,

formation,

bulk,

drainage,

surface properties,

and ultimately machine runnability.

The difficulty is that refining consumes significant electricity.

And too much refining—or the wrong refining intensity—can damage the fibre.

High mechanical intensity can shorten fibres or create unnecessary fines.

That means a mill is not trying to achieve the maximum possible refining.

It is trying to achieve the required paper properties with the least damaging and least expensive fibre treatment.

That distinction sits at the centre of AFT’s MaxEdge and Finebar approach.

AFT is trying to distribute refining energy more gently

AFT describes MaxEdge as a low-consistency refining platform using customized Finebar plate patterns.

Its refining philosophy is based on increasing the number of bar crossings while lowering specific edge load, allowing mechanical energy to be distributed through more frequent but lower-intensity fibre interactions.

According to AFT, this can promote fibre flexibility and external fibrillation while reducing unnecessary fibre cutting.

The principle matters more than the brand name.

Conventional refining can produce the required drainage or strength development by applying relatively intense mechanical impacts.

But if some of that energy goes into shortening fibres rather than developing them, the mill is effectively spending electricity to destroy part of the value it purchased in the pulp.

A lower-intensity approach tries to get more useful fibre development from each kilowatt-hour.

That can potentially create value in several places at once.

Less energy.

Better strength development.

Longer fibre preservation.

Potentially less chemical reinforcement.

And, in some applications, the ability to change the furnish itself.

Furnish substitution could be more valuable than electricity savings

This is where the economics of refining become much larger than the refiner motor.

Imagine a paper grade requires a particular tensile or burst specification.

One way to reach it is by using more high-strength fibre.

Another is to use chemicals.

Another is to refine the existing furnish more effectively.

If improved refining allows a mill to achieve the same paper property with:

less expensive fibre,

less long fibre,

less strength additive,

or a greater proportion of locally available pulp,

the resulting saving can exceed the direct reduction in refining electricity.

AFT itself lists furnish substitution potential among the benefits it has observed across refining applications. It also cites reductions in energy, longer plate life, lower chemical consumption and improved paper properties in individual mill installations. These remain supplier-reported results and should not be assumed for Naini until operating data are available.

That caveat is important.

AFT has not disclosed:

the current specific refining energy on PM1 or PM2,

the expected kWh-per-tonne reduction,

the current plate life,

the furnish recipe,

the expected strength gain,

or the projected return on investment.

So it would be premature to attach a specific savings figure to Naini’s project.

But the economic mechanism is clear.

A refiner upgrade can change the cost of the fibre recipe, not simply the electricity bill.

That matters more when the mill makes many different grades

Naini’s product portfolio makes this particularly relevant.

The company produces conventional writing and printing papers, photocopy paper, specialty coated grades and industrial papers.

Its current portfolio includes papers ranging from approximately 40 gsm specialty products to much heavier industrial grades.

Examples include:

writing and printing papers,

photocopy paper,

C1S label stock,

C1S flexible-packaging paper,

coated publication grades,

oil-and-grease-resistant paper,

absorbent kraft,

cupstock,

and other industrial grades.

Those papers do not want exactly the same fibre treatment.

A lightweight writing grade may prioritize formation, smoothness and opacity.

Absorbent kraft requires a different combination of porosity and strength.

Cupstock requires stiffness.

A specialty packaging paper may need strong converting performance.

This means the value of a modern refiner is partly in control.

Rather than treating every furnish with one fixed mechanical intensity, plate pattern and operating condition can be optimized around different fibres and final-property targets.

AFT says its Finebar patterns are customized according to furnish and refining objective rather than relying on one universal geometry.

For a mill producing a broad grade portfolio, that flexibility may be just as important as energy efficiency.

PM1 and PM2 are not untouched legacy assets

It would be misleading to describe Naini’s older machines as simply outdated lines receiving their first modernization.

The company has been rebuilding them for years.

Naini says PM2 was originally commissioned in 2005 and PM1 was realigned toward writing and printing papers in 2008.

PM2 underwent a major rebuild in 2011.

PM1 followed in 2014.

The company says both machines have since received additional upgrades from international technology suppliers.

PM2, for example, has previously received a Valmet OptiFlo headbox and dilution profiling system intended to improve formation, cross-direction profiles and productivity.

This matters because the latest AFT project fits a long-term pattern.

Naini is not keeping PM1 and PM2 alive through minimum maintenance.

It is repeatedly replacing critical process sections where modern technology can improve their economics.

That is classic brownfield mill strategy.

Do not rebuild everything.

Identify where a targeted upgrade changes the operating envelope of the entire machine.

Refining is an attractive brownfield investment because it sits upstream of many paper properties

Some paper-machine upgrades solve one narrow problem.

A new calender changes surface properties.

A new rewinder improves finishing.

A drive upgrade improves reliability.

Refining sits farther upstream.

Change fibre development and multiple downstream variables can move together.

Better-developed fibres can potentially alter:

strength development,

drainage,

basis-weight strategy,

chemical demand,

machine speed,

break frequency,

and finished-sheet performance.

That gives refining an unusually broad leverage point.

AFT’s own total-cost-of-ownership argument is built around this.

The company argues that refiner purchase price and plate cost are only part of the economics; fibre utilization, energy, downtime, maintenance and paper quality can have much larger financial consequences over the equipment’s operating life.

That is supplier positioning.

But the underlying economics are difficult to dispute.

A mill running thousands of hours per year multiplies even small process improvements across a large paper volume.

Naini’s new PM3 raises the benchmark for the older lines

The context changed significantly in 2025.

Naini commissioned PM3, supplied by Valmet, with installed capacity of 125,000 tonnes per year.

The machine moved Naini further into specialty and fibre-based packaging papers, including coated grades for flexible packaging, labels, wrappers, pouches and pharmaceutical applications.

Naini currently describes itself as having approximately 250,000 tonnes per year of paper capacity across three machines.

That means PM1 and PM2 remain a substantial part of the company’s manufacturing base even after the addition of PM3.

Replacing those lines with another greenfield machine would require enormous capital.

Modernizing selected process sections is much less capital intensive.

This is why the AFT order deserves more attention than its equipment count suggests.

Naini is effectively trying to narrow the technology gap between generations of paper machines.

PM3 gets new-machine technology.

PM1 and PM2 get targeted modernization.

The objective is not to make the three machines identical.

It is to ensure that the older assets continue contributing competitively.

The pulp mill makes refining efficiency even more strategically important

Naini is also an integrated pulp producer.

Its Kashipur operation includes a Valmet-supplied hardwood pulp line capable of producing up to 370 tonnes per day of bleached pulp, along with a high-efficiency recovery boiler rated at 750 tonnes of dry solids per day.

Integration changes the economics of refining.

An integrated mill has more direct control over pulp quality and fibre supply than a mill purchasing its entire furnish on the merchant market.

But internal pulp still has a cost.

Every tonne requires:

wood,

chemicals,

steam,

electricity,

washing,

bleaching,

recovery capacity,

and capital.

If refining allows each tonne of internally produced fibre to create more useful paper strength, the mill can potentially extract greater value from the pulp line.

That is another reason fibre development matters.

It connects pulp production with paper-machine economics.

Naini has already spent heavily on upstream fibre capability

The refiner project also fits the mill’s recent investment sequence.

In 2021, Naini commissioned the newer hardwood fibre line supplied by Valmet, alongside ECF bleaching and upgraded chemical-recovery infrastructure.

Then PM3 arrived in 2025.

Now PM1 and PM2 are receiving new refiners.

Looked at separately, these are equipment orders.

Looked at together, they show a coherent modernization strategy:

improve pulp quality,

increase pulp capacity,

add a modern specialty-paper machine,

then continue upgrading the older production assets fed by that fibre system.

This is more important than the individual supplier announcement.

Naini is modernizing the whole fibre-to-paper chain in stages.

Energy efficiency is important because refining is continuous

A refiner is not an intermittent machine.

When the paper machine runs, refining generally runs.

That makes electrical efficiency cumulative.

A difference of only a few kilowatt-hours per tonne, multiplied across tens of thousands of tonnes annually, can become meaningful.

AFT’s MaxEdge range can accommodate installed powers above 2,000 kW depending on application, although AFT has not disclosed the motor size of the four units ordered by Naini.

That missing detail matters.

Without installed power, production load and baseline specific energy, there is no credible way to calculate Naini’s expected electricity saving.

AFT’s wider case studies include examples of lower no-load power and significant annual electricity reductions, but those belong to other mills and other furnishes.

They should not be transferred directly to Kashipur.

The useful metric after startup will be much simpler:

How many kilowatt-hours are required to achieve the same fibre development and paper properties before and after the upgrade?

That will show whether the claimed efficiency becomes operating value.

Plate life is another cost that tends to disappear inside mill economics

Refiner plates wear.

As the bar edges wear and round, the mechanical action changes.

That can affect both energy efficiency and fibre development.

The mill eventually changes the segments, requiring:

replacement parts,

maintenance labour,

inventory,

and potentially downtime.

AFT says its Finebar manufacturing method can deliver up to three times the plate life of conventional designs in some applications. It also promotes the MaxEdge architecture around easier and faster segment replacement.

Again, this is a supplier claim rather than a forecast for Naini.

But the concept matters.

The cheapest plate on purchase price can become expensive if:

it wears quickly,

requires more energy as it wears,

changes quality over its life,

or needs frequent shutdowns.

That is why modern refining economics increasingly use total cost of ownership rather than simply cost per set of fillings.

Fibre consistency may matter as much as average quality

A paper mill does not only need a good average strength value.

It needs repeatability.

If refining changes from hour to hour as plates wear or furnish properties move, the paper machine has to compensate.

Operators may change:

basis weight,

starch,

retention chemistry,

refining power,

or machine settings.

Those adjustments themselves create variation.

A more stable refining stage can therefore reduce the amount of process chasing required downstream.

AFT’s order announcement specifically emphasizes controlled fibre development, stable operation and consistent paper quality rather than announcing a headline production increase.

That wording is notable.

Naini may be looking for a tighter process window as much as a higher one.

For writing and printing papers, consistency in formation, strength and surface performance can be commercially important because customers operate high-speed printing and converting equipment.

A sheet that averages the right specification but varies significantly across reels is still a quality problem.

Modern refining can also support lighter or more specialized grades

Naini’s range is becoming broader.

Its specialty portfolio now includes papers for flexible packaging and labels as well as traditional printing and industrial grades.

As mills move toward more differentiated paper products, fibre efficiency becomes increasingly valuable.

A commodity grade may tolerate a relatively broad process window.

A lightweight specialty grade may not.

Reducing basis weight while maintaining strength requires more efficient use of fibre.

Improving converting performance without adding more pulp requires better bonding.

Increasing functionality while maintaining machine speed requires tighter process control.

Refining cannot solve every one of these problems.

Coatings, chemicals and paper-machine design remain critical.

But the better the fibre enters the machine, the less the downstream process has to compensate.

The project also shows why India’s paper modernization is not only about new capacity

India’s paper investment story is often presented through greenfield machines and capacity expansion.

Naini itself illustrates that trend with PM3.

But much of India’s existing paper capacity will remain in service for years.

For those mills, competitiveness will depend on selective modernization.

Headboxes.

Press sections.

Drives.

Automation.

Stock preparation.

Refining.

Approach flow.

Energy systems.

These brownfield investments may attract less attention than a new 125,000-tonne machine, but they can be strategically important because they improve assets that have already been depreciated and integrated into an operating site.

The economics can be attractive when a relatively limited capital project improves performance across a large existing production base.

That appears to be the role of Naini’s four-refiner order.

AFT also gains an important reference in India

For AFT, the project has another significance.

The supplier explicitly described the order as strengthening its position in the Indian paper industry.

That is not difficult to understand.

A four-unit order covering two operating machines provides a larger commercial reference than a single trial refiner.

And Naini is increasingly visible as a technology investor, with equipment and systems from companies including Valmet, Voith, Andritz, Siemens and ABB across its manufacturing operation.

If the MaxEdge systems demonstrate measurable improvements, the reference could be useful in a market where many mills face the same questions:

How much more life can be extracted from an existing paper machine?

How can energy use be reduced?

How can local or lower-cost fibre be used more effectively?

And which brownfield investment provides the best return?

Refining sits squarely inside those decisions.

The December delivery is only the beginning of the real test

AFT plans to deliver the four refiners in December 2026.

The more meaningful story will come after commissioning.

The useful before-and-after metrics would include:

specific refining energy,

freeness or drainage development,

tensile and burst properties,

fibre-length preservation,

plate life,

chemical consumption,

machine efficiency,

grade-change stability,

and furnish composition.

If Naini can achieve the same sheet specifications with lower refining energy, that is one success.

If it can also reduce fibre cost or chemistry, the economics become stronger.

If quality consistency improves enough to reduce machine breaks or customer complaints, another layer of value appears.

That is why refining projects should be evaluated at paper-machine level rather than simply at the refiner.

The most important number may never be the refiner’s energy saving

The easiest result to advertise will probably be electricity.

It is measurable.

It has a direct cost.

It supports sustainability reporting.

But the potentially larger value may be hidden elsewhere.

Suppose better refining lets PM1 or PM2 use a slightly cheaper furnish.

Suppose it allows a small basis-weight reduction without losing strength.

Suppose plate changes become less frequent.

Suppose quality variation falls enough to improve saleable yield.

Each change may look modest.

Together they determine the cost of a tonne of paper.

That is why the MaxEdge order should not be read simply as Naini buying four new machines.

It is an attempt to improve the economics of the fibre already flowing through two existing paper machines.

Naini’s modernization strategy is becoming clearer

Naini’s development over the past several years follows a recognizable sequence.

First, strengthen pulp production and chemical recovery.

Then add a new high-specification PM3.

Now continue modernizing the older machines rather than letting investment concentrate exclusively on the new line.

That is a more balanced strategy than treating PM3 as the future and PM1/PM2 as legacy assets to be run until retirement.

The older machines still produce saleable grades.

They still have established operators.

They still use common mill infrastructure.

And much of their original capital has already been absorbed.

If targeted upgrades can narrow their operating-cost and quality disadvantage, they may remain economically valuable for a long time.

The four AFT refiners are one piece of that strategy.

The real objective is not better refining—it is more value from each fibre

That distinction matters.

No paper customer buys refining.

They buy:

printability,

strength,

smoothness,

stiffness,

absorbency,

runnability,

and consistent quality.

The mill buys pulp and energy to create those properties.

A refiner is valuable only if it improves that conversion.

Naini’s latest investment therefore comes down to a simple industrial equation:

Can PM1 and PM2 create the same—or better—paper performance from fewer process inputs?

If the answer is yes, the project does more than lower refining cost.

It extends the competitive life of two existing paper machines at a time when a much newer PM3 is raising the technological benchmark inside the same mill.

That is why this four-refiner order is more interesting than it first appears.

Naini is not merely replacing stock-preparation equipment.

It is trying to make sure that the arrival of a new generation of papermaking technology does not leave the previous generation behind.

Last Updated on 17/09/2026 by Jota Machinery