Ongoing work to get the Old Town mill up and running again took one big step forward last week, with the #5 package boiler started up last week.

According to a post on ND Paper’s Facebook page, the boiler was is the first piece of major operating equipment to run in the mill since it shut down in October 2015.

“Further, the mill will now be self-supplied with heat; up to this point, we’ve relied on portable heat units,” wrote ND Paper.

Plans remain on schedule for the reopening of the Omill this spring. The property was purchased by ND Paper LLC, a subsidiary of Nine Dragons Paper of Hong Kong, in October. Nine Dragons Paper is China’s largest producer of containerboard, which most commonly is used in making cardboard boxes.

When the mill abruptly closed in September 2015, it was producing roughly 155,000 metric tons annually of bleached hardwood kraft pulp. ND Paper is reconfiguring the mill to operate at substantially lower manufacturing costs than previous ownership in three ways: Moving the production mix from hardwood kraft to softwood kraft pulp; eliminating bleaching operations and focusing on unbleached softwood pulp, and sharing several management and administrative functions with ND Paper’s Rumford Division.

After a series of phased in capital investments, ND Paper anticipates the mill will ultimately produce 275,000 metric tons annually of unbleached kraft pulp.