Italian tissue giant Sofidel has confirmed that construction of a building to house its previously announced 75,000tpy Valmet-supplied TAD tissue machine will take place at its integrated facility in Inola, Oklahoma.
The machine start-up is scheduled for the second quarter of 2028 and once up and running it will further strengthen the company’s presence in the United States.
The total investment amounts to $775m, and the Inola site will also house converting lines with matching capacity for the production of finished goods.
Expansion of the pulp and parent reel warehouse is also included in the project, as is the construction of a fully automated finished goods warehouse – developed using E80 technology – with 100,000 pallet positions.
The new buildings will cover a total area of approximately 1,000,000 square feet (90,000 square metres).
Luigi Lazzareschi, Sofidel Group Chief Executive, said: “The new TAD machine we will install at our Inola, Oklahoma facility will further strengthen our production footprint and expand the availability of premium tissue products in the United States, enhancing our ability to meet growing customer demand, particularly in the South.
“Once again in Inola, thanks to the collaboration of our stakeholders, we have found the right conditions to invest and continue to grow.
“This is a significant investment, an important way to ‘open’ the year of our 60th anniversary with a determined industrial outlook toward the future.”
The new facility will also feature state of the art internal logistics. An automatic system using LGVs will transport parent reels from the paper machine to the warehouse, and an automated loading system will be connected directly to the finished goods automated warehouse.
Sofidel said the choice of TAD technology “directly addresses” the growing demand in the North American market that is increasingly oriented – also in the private label segment – toward premium products.
This operation adds to Sofidel’s recent major investments in the United States including the acquisition of the tissue division of Clearwater Paper Corporation (four facilities in North Carolina, Idaho, Nevada, and Illinois), the acquisition of four Royal Paper facilities in Arizona and South Carolina, and the expansion of the Duluth, Minnesota facility.
It also mirrors the recent project in Circleville, Ohio, where a new building was constructed to house a 70,000 tonnes per year Valmet DCT 200 tissue machine, which started up in September 2025.
Today, Sofidel Group operates 14 production sites across 11 states – Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Illinois, Mississippi, Florida, Ohio, South Carolina, and North Carolina – and maintains a corporate office in Horsham, Pennsylvania.
