Fortress Paper begins final phase of dissolving pulp conversion project at Thurso, Quebec, mill, signs new banknote paper orders at its Landquart, Switzerland, mill

Sandy Yang

VANCOUVER, British Columbia , October 12, 2011 (press release) – Fortress Paper Ltd. (www.fortresspaper.com) ("Fortress" or the "Company") (TSX:FTP) wishes to announce the commencement of the final phase of the dissolving pulp conversion project at its Fortress Specialty Cellulose Mill in Thurso, Quebec and the signing of new banknote paper orders at its Landqart Mill in Landquart, Switzerland.

Thurso Quebec:

The Fortress Specialty Cellulose Mill was purchased by Fortress in early 2010 with the plan to convert the NBHK mill to a dissolving pulp producer commencing in May 2011. Moreover, the construction of a cogeneration facility to provide 18.8 megawatts per annum of green power to Hydro Quebec for a 15 year term has also recently broken ground, and is scheduled for completion in the second half of 2012.

Peter Vinall, Chief Executive Officer of Fortress Specialty Cellulose, commented: "The Thurso mill conversion has entered the final shutdown phase which represents the ending of NBHK production at the mill. We have mobilized a workforce of over 800 workers on site to assist with final mill connections and de-bottlenecking work. When the mill is restarted in early November it will be a low cost, high quality dissolving pulp producer with an annual production capacity of approximately 200,000 tonnes."

Landqart Switzerland:

Fortress Paper's Lanqart Mill reports the signing of new banknote paper contracts for 2012, which represent a significant portion of the mill's annual banknote production capacity.

Chad Wasilenkoff, Chief Executive Officer of Fortress Paper, commented: "Our Landqart Mill was among the winning bids for a number of banknote contracts. Bidding on contracts of this volume would not have been possible prior to our recent PM1 banknote machine upgrade, which increased our overall annual production capacity from 2,500 to 10,000 tonnes."

About Fortress Paper

Fortress Paper is a leading international producer of security and other specialty papers and products. Fortress operates three mills, the Landqart Mill located in Switzerland, the Dresden Mill located in Germany and the Fortress Specialty Cellulose Mill located in Quebec, Canada. Fortress Paper's security papers include banknote, passport and visa papers and its specialty papers include non-woven wallpaper base products, and graphic and technical papers. Fortress Paper's pulp business includes specialty pulp produced at the Fortress Specialty Cellulose Mill, which is currently in the process of converting this capacity into dissolving pulp production along with the construction of a biomass based cogeneration plant.

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