BELGIAN—  Sappi is closing its Lanaken Mill in Belgium, a move that will take out more than half a million tonnes of coated woodfree paper production for the heatset web offset market. Sappi Lanaken Mill was an integrated pulp and paper mill. It employed 581 workers and produced 530,000tpa of high-quality coated woodfree HSWO paper it primarily sold to the European print market. This is the second European mill Sappi has recently closed. Their Stockstadt Mill in Germany – which had produced 220,000tpa of coated and uncoated woodfree paper is also closing. The two closures will reduce around 30% of Sappi’s prior graphic paper capacity. Sappi cited significant overcapacity in graphic paper along with the global economic downturn and geopolitical instability.  Sappi said: “For Sappi, our strategic focus includes reducing exposure to the graphic paper segment while expanding our presence in packaging, speciality papers, pulp and biomaterials.