P&G WILL START UP IN FALL 1999; PLANT OFFICIAL EXPLAINS WHY CAPE WAS CHOSEN

The first product should roll off the lines of Procter & Gamble Co.'s $350 million addition in October 1999.

Steve Bell, start-up director for P&G's expansion north of Cape Girardeau, said the addition is the second-most expensive transaction in the company's history.

P&G announced the expansion in April 1997. Bounty paper towels and Charmin toilet tissue will be manufactured at the new facility while the existing plant will continue to manufacture disposable diapers and feminine hygiene products.

Bell spoke Monday to the Cape Girardeau Rotary Club at the Holiday Inn.

The addition is part of a major expansion of the company, he said.

Bell cited three advantages for choosing the Cape Girardeau County site:

It is centrally situated, it has an ample water supply in the Mississippi River and it has a skilled work force available.

The biggest advantage, Bell said, was its location. Because of the Cape Girardeau plant's "dead center" geography, it will help trim distribution costs by more than $100 million.

The Mississippi River is important because making paper towels and tissues requires a large water supply.

"Some people would say the Mississippi isn't a great water source, but we can clean it up," Bell said.

The skilled work force also made the site ideal, he said.

The plant has "proven to be one of the best-running plants" in P&G's operation, Bell said, largely because of its work force.

The expansion will bring another 400 jobs -- including 200 "totally brand-new" positions -- to the region, he said.

With the more than 1,200 employees at the existing plant, that will make the local P&G plant the third-largest in the company, Bell said.

Also, he said, adding to a plant saved P&G "an awful lot of overhead" associated with new construction.

P&G's other North American plants will send at least three employees to start up the plant, Bell said.

"Some of our larger plants will be sending as many as 30 employees," Bell said.

The new plant will house seven production lines, including three for paper towels and four for toilet tissue, with room to add a fourth production line for paper towels, Bell said.

The new plant will "truly be a 21st century facility," he said.

"There are a lot of concepts that have never been integrated at one facility," Bell said. "It's the chance to have everything in one facility."

One new feature will be an automated truck-loading system to enable a trailer to be loaded in two seconds, he said.

"Where I used to work, it used to take one person about half an hour with a forklift to load a truck," he said.

Bell outlined a timeline for operations to start.

The water and waste-water treatment facilities should be on line in January.

"What we're doing is figuring out how to train 400 people on this new technology," he said.

The training lines will be set up and staffed "around the clock" for about six months, Bell said.

The first production will be paper towels in October 1999, and production of toilet tissue should begin in April 2000.

Work on the plant is running slightly ahead of schedule, Bell said, but August 1999 is "absolutely the earliest" production could start, with the plant fully operational by the second quarter of 2000.

Two paper machines to handle towel and tissue production are being made in Sweden, he said. The machines, weighing 200 tons each, will be brought by barge up the Mississippi River and then by rail and truck to the plant.

A rail spur and river water treatment plant are near completion, Bell said.

Bounty paper towels are P&G's "No. 1 moneymaker" and the top-selling brand in the nation, Bell said.

P&G's other North American plants are in northeast Pennsylvania; Oxnard, Calif.; Albany, Ga.; Green Bay, Wis.; and Toronto, Canada.

Procter & Gamble Co. expansion

Project scope:

-- Two high-speed paper machines, one for paper towels and one for toilet tissue. The plan calls for adding two paper machines if demand is sufficient.

-- Seven production lines.

-- Two boilers and a boiler house.

-- New natural gas lines.

-- Power substation.

-- Water treatment plant to process 10 million gallons per day from the Mississippi River.

-- The new plant is 35 acres under roof.

-- Production of 300 to 400 tons of product per day.

Staffing of the new plant:

-- 400 employees total.

-- 80 technicians on paper machines.

-- 136 technicians on paper-towel lines.

-- 112 technicians on toilet-tissue lines.

-- 20 technicians for site utilities.

-- Ten additional employees for the existing plant.

What the plant will produce:

-- Bounty paper towels and Charmin toilet tissue.

-- Fiber will be shipped into the plant and processed and packaged into the finished project.

-- 100 percent of the paper produced internally will be recycled. No post-consumer recycled paper will be used in production. The plant includes $50 million in recycling equipment.

-- Paper fiber will be imported from cloned trees from plantations in Brazil and from Alberta and British Columbia, Canada.