NATCHEZ — The von Drehle company received a big shipment in Natchez last week — a very big shipment.

The company is gearing up to start paper production in Natchez, expanding its fiber pulp recycling capabilities into manufacturing.

As part of that, von Drehle has committed nearly $100 million to the expansion, which will include 30,000 square feet to house a paper manufacturing machine and 12,000 square feet to store the large rolls that will be manufactured on site.

While von Drehle has been building on site, the equipment necessary to add the paper production component to its Natchez site has been ordered and manufactured in Europe.

The company’s Yankee dryer — a pressure vessel utilized in making paper — arrived in the Natchez-Adams County Port by boat Friday. The piece of equipment is so large it was expected to take a full day to unload it and move it from the dock to the company’s site on Majorca Road just outside the port.

“The Yankee dryer weighs 120 tons, and we’re going to need two cranes on site to pick it off the truck,” von Drehle’s Vice President of Manufacturing Joe Pankratz said.

“When it gets here, the Yankee will be on site adjacent to where it will ultimately be — setting it in its position is probably another month away.

“Something like that, the logistics of getting it cast, poured and machined across (the Atlantic) and then up to us is an extensive process, so you try to get it here before you need it,” he said.

The paper-manufacturing machine the company has ordered — an Advantage NTT tissue machine from Valmet — allows for the use of virgin or recycled fibers.

Pankratz said the company’s equipment has been arriving ahead of schedule.

“The paper machine is being delivered in 55 ocean-going containers and 25 truckloads,” he said. “We have probably half of the equipment here now.”

Pankratz said the company also expects significant new equipment for the fiber recycling operation to arrive in October.

Onsite, though the company lost some time in construction because of weather delays, the foundation for the paper machine, the basement and the machine track associated with it are complete.

“That was the biggest, hardest thing, because we are talking about lots of yards of concrete, in excess of 5,000 yards,” Pankratz said.

The company has also laid a new road bet and is working toward overlay of a new access road, the construction of which was underwritten with $500,000 from the Mississippi Development Authority’s Development Infrastructure Program and a 10-percent match from Adams County.

The county’s match was made with in-kind contributions to the project in the form of dirt.

“The second road is going to be essential for allowing our wastepaper coming into one side of the mill,” Pankratz said. “The other side will have completed product coming in and out of the plant, and we don’t want employees to get tangled up in that.”

Natchez Inc. Executive Director Chandler Russ said the road project is on time as well from the perspective of the state.

“When they redesigned the flow of the plant, adding the paper machine and dryer into the mix required an additional access point to the facility, so now you basically have an entrance that will allow employees and raw materials in, and an exit for finished goods,” he said.

Russ said the von Drehle project is on schedule from an employment and investment standpoint as well.

“It is going very well, and von Drehle continues to meet and exceed the expectations both from their employment ramp up as well as the construction of their project,” he said. “They are doing extremely well and we continue to be excited about it.”

Pankratz said the company currently has approximately 70 people working for it, but will have 160 or 170 by early 2017.

The von Drehle facility was purchased in early 2013, approximately three months after the former Mississippi River Pulp shuttered its pulp recycling operations there.

Von Drehle has manufacturing operations in North Carolina, Nevada and Tennessee. It sells towel, tissue and dispenser products to industrial, commercial and institutional distributers, contract cleaners and building-maintenance service providers.