Lenzing offering continuous filament Tencel

At an exclusive event in Paris, the Lenzing Group launched a new product: TENCEL™ Luxe. The TENCEL™ Luxe randed lyocell filament is another key milestone in the implementation of the company’s sCore TEN strategy and the first time that Lenzing enters the filament market. It will further support Lenzing’s shift to become a true speciality player in the botanic materials market derived from sustainable wood sources. TENCEL™ Luxe: The new player of eco-couture fabrics TENCEL™ Luxe branded filaments are the new player for sustainable high-end cellulose textiles by offering superior aesthetics, performance and comfort level that allow them to be the perfect partner with other noble fibers such as silk, cashmere or wool. The smooth surface of the TENCEL™ branded Luxe filament gives fabrics a silky smooth feel and liquid-like drape for the most sensual silhouettes. Moreover, TENCEL™ Luxe branded filaments are naturally breathable due to their wood-based origin and offer outstanding color fastness, enabling designers to express bold color palettes where creativity knows no boundaries. 

TENCEL™ Luxe  eco-botanic lyocell filaments are made from wood pulp, which is sourced from sustainable wood in line with Lenzing’s strict Wood and Pulp Policy. They are produced using Lenzing’s pioneering closed-loop lyocell production process, which has received the “European Award for the Environment” from the European Union. This process ensures minimal environmental impact due to low process water and energy use and raw materials consumption.

“We are committed to setting industry standards in order to enhance the protection of our environment while making filaments for fabrics that are TENCEL™ Luxe is a further sign of our ongoing commitment towards innovation and sustainability”, explains Stefan Doboczky, Chief Executive Officer of the Lenzing Group. “The expansion plan represents the next consistent step in the implementation of our sCore TEN strategy and is a commitment of Lenzing as a hub for research & development and engineering.” TENCEL™ Luxe is another proof of Lenzing’s innovation strength*. It will open new markets for the

Capacity Expansion in Heiligenkreuz

 Expansion of capacities for premium specialty fibers by 25,000 tons
 Investments of about EUR 70 mn over the next twelve months
 Project highlights strategic importance of Heiligenkreuz for TENCEL® premium fibers

Heiligenkreuz – The Lenzing Group is expanding production capacities for its specialty fiber TENCEL® at its site in Heiligenkreuz, Burgenland. After obtaining all required approvals and permits, the expansion project was initiated today, Tuesday, March 21, 2017. The ground-breaking ceremony was attended by Lenzing CEO Stefan Doboczky, along with Bernd Zauner and Dieter Eichinger, the two managing directors of Lenzing Fibers, Burgenland’s Provincial Governor Hans Niessl and Alexander Petschnig, the Regional Minister for Economic Affairs.
“We will invest about EUR 70 mn over the coming twelve-month period to expand production capacities for our high-quality botanic specialty fibers”, Doboczky says. “With this investment we are responding to strong global demand for new types of TENCEL® premium fibers such as the RefibraTM fiber, using cotton scraps from the manufacturing of cotton garments and wood as raw materials. This fiber makes a widely-recognized contribution to the circular economy in the textile industry. The fiber was very successfully launched on the market in February by our strategic partner Inditex in its Zara stores”, he adds.

Annual production capacities for fibers will be increased by about 25,000 tons as a result of the investment. The fibers will be available to customers starting at the end of the first quarter of 2018.

“We launched the production of lyocell fibers in Heiligenkreuz 20 years ago, and have expanded the site to make it to one of the largest industrial employer in Southern Burgenland. The new investments comprise a further important milestone in our success story, and will provide added impetus to growth in a structurally weak region”, states Zauner.

Lenzing put its first industrial-scale lyocell fiber production facility into operation 20 years ago. Today the fibers are sold under the TENCEL® brand name. A recent study carried out under the scientific supervision of Friedrich Schneider, Professor at Johannes Kepler University in Linz, concluded that the Lenzing plant in Heiligenkreuz generates considerable regional economic effects. In addition to the approximately 230 jobs at Lenzing Fibers itself, around 940 additional jobs are secured on a long-term basis thanks to the company’s economic activities in the region. The additional value creation equals about EUR 102 mn per year.

In its 20-year history, the Heiligenkreuz plant has sold close to 700,000 tons of fibers and exported the majority across the globe, as far away as China, Korea and Japan. The factory in Heiligenkreuz has been continuously expanded due to rapidly growing demand. Up until now, Lenzing has invested a total of roughly EUR 750 mn to build and extend production capacities for TENCEL® fibers. In addition to the Heiligenkreuz facility, these specialty fibers are also manufactured at the Lenzing site, in Mobile (USA) and Grimsby (Great Britain) (where the original Tencel process developed by Courtaulds first went into production in the 1990's. Ed.)

The lyocell technology applied in Heiligenkreuz is characterized by a very good environmental performance. The cellulose fibers are derived from the renewable raw material wood in a closed-loop process, resulting in a minimal amount of environmentally harmful emissions. Due to their outstanding properties, TENCEL® fibers boast a particularly broad range of applications, both in the world of fashion as well as technical areas and nonwovens. Lenzing is the leading producer of lyocell fibers by far, and is continually upgrading and refining this technology.

Source: Lenzing PR

Lenzing invests in new TENCEL® fiber plant in the USA

 State-of-the-art 90,000 tons TENCEL® fiber plant to be built in Mobile, Alabama
 Investment of EUR 275 mn – operations to start in the first quarter of 2019
 Strengthening of technical expertise by creating a new Management Board Role – Heiko Arnold appointed Chief Technology Officer

Lenzing - The Lenzing Group aims to increase the share of specialty fibers as a percentage of revenue to 50 percent by 2020. Following the previously announced expansion plans for Lenzing, Heiligenkreuz (Austria) and Grimsby (Great Britain), the Supervisory Board of Lenzing AG approved yesterday the investment for a TENCEL® fiber plant in the USA. Lenzing now plans to construct a state-of-the-art plant with a production capacity of 90,000 tons per year at its site in Mobile, Alabama. The new facility will be the largest TENCEL® fiber plant in the world, it will set a new milestone in the history of lyocell fibers. The investment volume will total USD 293 mn (EUR 275 mn). The new plant will utilize the latest technological standards and is scheduled to start in the first quarter of 2019.

The Lenzing Group currently has a worldwide production capacity of 222,000 tons per year of TENCEL® fibers. The new plant in Mobile plus the already announced debottlenecking projects at the other TENCEL® fiber sites will increase the total TENCEL® fiber capacity by more than 50 percent by 2019. The decision to build this plant in the US was supported by the good infrastructure at our Mobile site and attractive energy costs.
“This investment represents another major milestone in the implementation of our corporate strategy sCore TEN. It will bring us a big step further to reach our target of 50 percent revenue from specialty fibers by 2020“, explained Lenzing CEO Stefan Doboczky. “This expansion also underscores our commitment to all our TENCEL® fiber customers, who continue to make their products even more sustainable using TENCEL® fiber, the world’s most sustainable botanic fiber,“ added Doboczky.

The disciplined implementation of the Lenzing’s expansion program is essential for driving the Lenzing Group’s organic growth agenda. Therefore it was decided to create a new Management Board role, pooling together the key technical, operational and engineering responsibilities. The Supervisory Board of the company appointed today Heiko Arnold as the new Chief Technology
Officer. In addition to a strong scientific and technical education, Arnold has gained many years of experience with BASF in the realization of major investment projects and continuous operational improvements as well as extensive know-how in Research & Development. He will be responsible for all technical departments in the Lenzing Group.

“We are pleased to welcome Heiko Arnold, a further expert with broad international experience, to Lenzing’s Management Board team“, commented Hanno Bästlein, Chairman of the Lenzing Supervisory Board. “Lenzing is on a successful, dynamic growth course with the development and implementation of the new sCore TEN corporate strategy, and that makes an increase in the Management Board to four persons a reasonable step. His 15 years of experience in Asia, in the realization of major investment projects and in operational excellence make Arnold a perfect match for the challenges faced by Lenzing“, explained Bästlein.

Lenzing Invests More Than EUR 100 Million in New Production Capacities for Specialty Fibers in Austria

The Lenzing Group is expanding its capacities for specialty fibers. Particularly the importance of the manufacturing facility in Heiligenkreuz, Burgenland, is underpinned. Further investments will be made as well at the production site in Lenzing. “We will invest more than 100 million Euro over the next 20 months to expand production capacities for our high-quality botanic fibers, 70% at the Heiligenkreuz site and 30% at Lenzing”, says Lenzing’s CEO Stefan Doboczky. “Given the strong market demand this expansion will help our customers in their growth plans as well as expanding our global market leadership position for speciality fibers.”

As part of its new group strategy sCore TEN, Lenzing set the target of increasing the share of specialty fibers as a proportion of its total revenue to 50% by the year 2020. Specialty fibers currently account for 41.7% of revenue. The planned capacity expansion of 35,000 tons of specialty fibers at the sites in Heiligenkreuz and Lenzing, as well as at the site in Grimsby, Great Britain, is the first step of the announced speciality fiber expansion program of Lenzing AG. Customers will be able to take advantage of some 10,000 tons of specialty fiber capacity already by the end of this year.

The major part of investments will be carried out in the years 2016 and 2017. The Lenzing Group will fully utilize its in house engineering competence, supported by local construction companies and suppliers for these projects. The investment in Heiligenkreuz will create 25 new jobs (full-time equivalents). Lenzing AG decided to start its investment program for speciality fibers at its existing sites in Austria and the UK as it allows fast capacity ramp up. The strategic role of the Heiligenkreuz site as a key location of new types of TENCEL® premium fibers developed developed by researchers and application engineers in Lenzing in cooperation with customers is strongly underpinned.

Lenzing uses post-consumer recycled cotton in blend with woodpulp to make Tencel

Lenzing is introducing a newly developed TENCEL® fiber, which combines pulp from cotton fabric waste and wood pulp cellulose in order to drive circular economy solutions in the textile industry.

Lenzing is the first manufacturer worldwide to offer man-made cellulosic fibers incorporating recycled materials on a commercial scale.

The fiber will be marketed in a unique way, sold to retailers and brands—rather than yarn or fabric manufacturers—who will then produce their garment collections in a sustainable fashion. This cooperation with leaders in retail will ensure cooperation and transparency in the textile value chain; in addition, a new type of identification is being employed to ensure that the TENCEL® fibers used in the garment are the most sustainable ones.

Robert van de Kerkhof, CCO of Lenzing, said, “For Lenzing, developing circular business models in the fashion industry ensures the decoupling of business growth from pressure on ecological resource consumption. It reduces the need to extract additional virgin resources from nature, and reduces the net impact on ecological resources.”

An additional announcement regarding the new TENCEL® fiber came from Spanish multinational clothing company Inditex. At the company’s Annual General Meeting last Tuesday, the company presented its 2016-2020 Environmental Strategy Plan, which outlined the use of the new fiber as a means of closing the loop.

The Inditex program will begin by contributing about 500 tons of post-industrial textile waste for use in the new TENCEL® fiber, with the aim of reaching 3,000 tons within a few years.