South Africa-based forest products and paper company Sappi is undertaking a conversion process from graphic paper to packaging board on one of its paper machine lines at its mill in Somerset County, Maine. The company, which uses predominantly or exclusively virgin wood fiber to make its paper and paperboard, says it is investing up to $418 million in Maine to convert its paper machine 2 (PM2) from graphic paper to paperboard production. Although the new packaging board paper machine may not consume old corrugated containers (OCC) or any other recovered fiber grades, it will add up to 470,000 tons more of annual solid bleached sulphate (SBS) capacity to the United States paperboard market. …Sappi predicts the newly reconfigured PM2 will be able to restart in the second half of its 2025 fiscal year, which runs from April 1 to Sept. 30, 2025. …Sappi predicts a “significant growth opportunity as consumer demand for packaging shifts from plastic to paper.”