Italian tissue manufacturer Sofidel has officially broken ground on a $775 million expansion of its integrated production facility at the Port of Inola, Oklahoma — one of the largest industrial investments in northeast Oklahoma in recent years, and the latest milestone in the group's decade-long push to become a dominant force in the North American tissue market.
The ceremony, held on June 4, marks the formal start of a project that will add nearly one million square feet of new buildings to the existing site, bringing Sofidel's total footprint at the port to approximately three million square feet. Machine start-up is scheduled for the second quarter of 2028.
At the heart of the expansion is a new building to house a 75,000-tonne-per-year Valmet Through-Air-Drying (TAD) tissue machine, paired with converting lines of matching capacity for the production of finished goods. The project also includes expanded pulp and parent reel storage and a fully automated finished goods warehouse — developed using E80 technology — with capacity for 100,000 pallet positions.
Internal logistics will be handled by a system of Laser Guided Vehicles (LGVs) that transport parent reels from the paper machine to the warehouse, connected to an automated loading system linked directly to the finished goods warehouse. The choice of TAD technology reflects growing North American demand for premium tissue products, including in the private label segment.
"The new TAD machine will further strengthen our production footprint and expand the availability of premium tissue products in the United States, enhancing our ability to meet growing customer demand, particularly in the South," said Luigi Lazzareschi, Sofidel Group CEO, at the groundbreaking. "Once again in Inola, thanks to the collaboration of our stakeholders, we have found the right conditions to invest and continue to grow. This is a significant investment, an important way to 'open' the year of our 60th anniversary with a determined industrial outlook toward the future."
Sofidel first established its Inola presence in 2020 with a $360 million greenfield investment — the group's second built-from-scratch US facility after Circleville, Ohio, which opened in 2018. The current expansion, first announced in October 2025 and finalized in March 2026, is the latest in a series of major North American moves that have included the acquisition of Clearwater Paper's tissue division (four facilities across North Carolina, Idaho, Nevada, and Illinois), the acquisition of four Royal Paper facilities in Arizona and South Carolina, and the expansion of its Duluth, Minnesota plant.
A similar project is already underway in Circleville, where a new building housing a 70,000-tonne-per-year Valmet DCT 200 tissue machine started up in September 2025.
Today, Sofidel operates 14 production sites across 11 US states and maintains its corporate office in Horsham, Pennsylvania. In just over a decade, the group has grown to become the fourth largest tissue producer in North America — a market that now accounts for 50% of Sofidel's total global revenue, where it holds a leadership position in private label.
