Belgian giant Coldset Printing Partners will add heatset waterless print capability as part of a two-year upgrade programme at its Paal-Beringen print site.

Five of 12 existing KBA Commander towers are being removed and two new waterless Cortina presses added in a complex six-phase programme which will take until the middle of 2019.

A partnership between publishers Corelio and Concentra, CPP is the largest newspaper printer in the country, producing De Standaard, Het Nieuwsblad, De Gentenaar, L´Avenir, Gazet van Antwerpen, Het Belang van Limburg, De Limburger and Metro nightly, plus a variety of 'daytime' products.

Impact of the programme - which will bring the Commander presses up to the latest specifications - will be minimised by spreading the work over the six integrated retrofit phases, the first of which starts mid-2017.

The Cortinas are scheduled to go live in 2018 and 2019. They will be capable of flexible web widths between 1200-1620 mm and have a coating unit, to produce newspapers, magazines and a range of other special publications. Each will comprise two reelstands, two printing towers and a folder - capable of 64-page colour tabloids - and feature automation systems including plate and format changing, CleanTronic washing systems, RollerTronic roller locks and colour and cut-off register controls.

KBA says the coating unit is a facility other coldset presses cannot offer, and will enable the production of high-quality semicommercials for external target groups in addition to daily newspaper production. Further coating units and hot-air dryers can be retrofitted as required.

Reelstands, printing towers, folders, controllers and consoles of the existing KBA Commander are to be brought into line with the latest technology, quarter-width ink ducts replaced with full-width ducts, and the entire scope of mechanical, pneumatic, control and drive elements overhauled or renewed. To accommodate future production demands, five of the 12 Commander towers are to be dismantled and a folder relocated.

CPP managing director Paul Huybrechts says it was important to obtain everything from a single source: "The biggest challenge will be to coordinate the extensive retrofit measures perfectly with the installation of the new presses, but we are convinced KBA will accomplish this task in admirable fashion," he says.

Pictured: How the press will look, with the two new Cortina sections at the right

After the contract signing (from left) KBA Digital & Web Solutions' Thomas Hornung, Steffen Thoma and Thomas Potzkai, CPP project manager Pascal Coenen, Paul Huybrechts, Christoph Müller (KBA-Digital & Web Solutions chief executive), Joachim Barthelme, Bernd Hillebrand, Peter Benz and Herbert Kaiser (KBA-Digital & Web Solutions)