Transcontinental Inc. said it will install a MAN Roland press with coldset/UV capabilities to anchor a $60 million expansion of its Transmag newspaper facility in Montreal.

The 6-by-2 ColorMAN XXL, to go into production next year, will give Transcontinental the ability to produce color on every page of the publications it now produces, the printer said. It will replace six machines now in use at the facility.

 

“This investment is part of our strategy to become North America’s leader in newspaper printing outsourcing,” said Francois Olivier, Transcontinental’s president and chief executive officer, in a statement.

The press will be configured as eight, eight-couple towers and built with a common impression cylinder design, said Ron Sams, MAN Roland’s vice president of newspaper sales. It will be equipped with a Pecom control system and a semi-automatic plate loading system.

It will sport a cutoff of 22 inches, a web width of 67.5 inches and three 2:5:5 folders. MAN Roland will install the press in two parallel lines, with one line equipped with two of the folders.

With the installation of a UV drying system from Eltex Elektrostatik GmbH, Transcontinental will become the world’s first newspaper publisher to employ UV curing on a triplewide press.

The Eltex Innocure system, which uses an inert gas to promote drying, will be installed on one of the eight towers and can be expanded to other towers, if necessary. It’s capable of curing pages at press speeds of up to 90,000 copies per hour.

Herold Druck and Verlag in Vienna, Austria, was the first newspaper to use the Eltex system on a doublewide press. It went into production with the system last year (see Newspapers & Technology, December 2007).

The Transmag facility prints 40 community newspapers as well as a business publication, Les Affaires, and the free paper Metro Montreal.

To accommodate the ColorMAN press and associated equipment, Transcontinental will expand the Montreal plant to 145,000 square feet from its current size of 80,000 square feet.