The Samoa pulp mill converts wood into pulp. The process starts when a local sawmill harvests timber from the surrounding managed forests. During the processing of logs into lumber, the sawmills create waste wood which is chipped and sent to the pulp mill. The chips are processed at the mill to remove the oversized and undersized fraction, and the remainder is stored in piles until needed by the mill. The chip yard is large enough to store an entire month's worth of supply, or approximately 40,500 tons of chips. Wood is a combination of cellulose and lignin. Cellulose is the portion that forms pulp, and lignin is the glue that holds the cellulose in the matrix. To make pulp, the lignin must be removed from the chips to free the cellulose.

Wood chips are mixed with white liquor (strong caustic) and transported into a large pressure cooker called a digester. The purpose of the digester is to dissolve the lignin. After 5 hours the lignin has been dissolved and the pulp is ready to be washed, dried, baled, and made ready for shipments to customers around the world.

Spent cooking liquor (black liquor) from the digestion process is first evaporated to remove enough water so that the remaining solids can be burned. The concentrated black liquor is fired in a chemical recovery boiler. The heat produces steam, which is used to produce electricity and energy for the rest of the mill. The inorganic remnants of the original cooking liquor melt and chemically react. The spent cooking chemicals are "reduced" in the boiler and flow as a molten mass or "smelt" out of the bottom of the recovery furnace where they are mixed with water. The resulting solution is green in color, and consequently is given the name "green liquor." The green liquor goes to the causticizing area where quick lime is added, and the chemical reaction turns the green liquor back into the white liquor needed for digestion. The spent lime is recovered and reheated in a lime kiln until it becomes quick lime and is ready for reuse in the process. The entire process of chemical recovery is named the Kraft process, and hence the mill is a Kraft pulp mill.

The purpose of the pulp machine is to prepare the pulp for customer shipment. A continuous pulp sheet is formed on a large screen and then pressed to remove most of the water. After pressing, the pulp sheet enters a drying section, where the pulp fibers begin to bond together as steam heated rollers compress the sheet. The dry pulp sheet is then cut, stacked, and baled with wires.

The pulp bales are next stacked into larger units and again bundled with wires. The units are stored in our warehouse to be transported by containerized shipping or by barge. As the mill operates 24 hours a day/7 days a week, a team of logistics experts ensures that deliveries are constant and seamless.