Canfor to Spend $30 Million on Polar Sawmill
Thursday, May 1, 2014 @ 3:59 AM
Prince George, B.C.- Canfor has announced it will proceed with capital investments totaling approximately $30 million to improve infrastructure, productivity and cost performance at its Polar sawmill in Bear Lake.
The project includes design and technologies to enhance the mitigation of combustible dust.
The project will include upgrades to log processing, lumber handling and residual systems, as well as replacing electrical components and the sawmill building structure.
"Canfor continues to be proactive in investing in our mills to ensure we have competitive facilities that can operate in all market conditions," said Canfor Corporation President and CEO Don Kayne.
Work related to these capital projects will start this month.
Comments
Canfor is way too big for our country. Without competition they pretty much govern the lumber industry wheras they pick and choose who gets favored and who gets the axe.
Pretty scary.
Tractor, West Fraser does a pretty good job keeping them in line as well.
If your working for the mills as a employee or contractor, you have to come to the realization that if the timber supply is less, its will negatively impact your long term employment.
A company makes a major investment that will ensure well paying jobs remain in our community and some people still find fault. Sad.
I think ewitt is just saying that its lucky Bear Lake wasn’t just thrown to the trash like other mill towns have. Not yet anyways.
By the way, investment doesn’t usually mean increased employment. It usually means less employment. Less trees makes less employment and so does increased production in fewer mills.
Profits made in BC mills doesn’t mean that profit will be reinvested in BC. If there are better returns buying US mills such as what West Fraser and Canfor have been doing, then that will keep happening.
Buying mills south of the line is part and parcel of the strategy to stay competitive in all market conditions. If the price drops enough to cause the tariffs to come into effect companies like Canfor and WF will benefit as they own US mills. This will allow the mills in Canada to stay running during lean times.
Mills were not thrown in the trash but were short of one thing very important to a sawmill-a steady supply of logs.There will be more mill closures in the region because of BK, this investment ensures that Polar is a lot less likely to be one of them. PG sawill and Isle Pierre might be sweating a little at this announcement. If the AAC drops enough in future years even Plateau could be the one to go and the other two modernized.
Whats the acronym is ACC.
What surprises me is that they have not decided to build a super mill in the Prince George area. One of those mills which runs 24/7.
They shut down for two weeks every 3 months for maintenance and repairs. so they can set it up for 1.2 billion bdft a year mill. if they build a mill like that, guess what, every logging contractor in town will be sweating bullets. One sawmill, that’s it. do them wrong, your done.
If i had to speculate on long term operations of Canfor it would look like this..
PG Saw.. Will be long term because of chip supply for the pulpmills and it has a rail off load for logs in the log yard. Its also close to suplies and services.
Polar..Will be long term becuase its located near good timber and has a headrig for large timber.(The investment annoucement confirms it.)Also the boosted AAC in the seabach is good for polar.
Isle Peire.. Could be easily on the chopping block once the beetle wood gets harvested..Any wood that goes to isle peire can be re routed to Plateau. If plateu ramps up a small log line then i would be worried if i worked at Isle Peire..
I think the take Northman has is about right.
Although Bear Lake I don’t think could have gone on past this summer without this investment… it is a bandaid operation with a bad roof, lots of history with fires, and dust control problems, and their log infeed has had nothing but problems. Bear Lake has some of the best log supply though and that is their ace that will keep them operating IMO. When things are ticking though they are not far off from a supermill in production.
Isle Pierre is slow and steady, but I think almost all their wood is dead pine wood, so that is an ominous sign for them… that and their location doesn’t bode well for them either. I think Canfor would give Isle Pierre a lot of leeway though because they are a mill strategic to their bulk logistics with large stock piles of hog fuel, and wood chips. The best hog fuel currently comes from Isle Pierre for things like the city, UNBC, PG Co-Gen, PBEC, Pinnacle Pellet, and what not… so they can charge a premium for that and provide the security of fiber that none of the other mills can. That might change once Lakeland comes back on line so time will tell.
PG Saw will always be the backbone of the lumber milling operation for Canfor in PG area. They basically have everything going for them without much for any weakness.
Once opened, Lakeland will be a supermill.
With 4 employees!
I don’t think Lakeland will be a supermill.. Sinclair group Is primarily a stud producer.. As well they don’t have the timber allowance..
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