Prince George, B.C. – Canfor is starting to receive the insurance proceeds from the North Central Plywood plant fire.

 

 In a conference call this morning, Chief Financial Officer, Tom Sitar stated “A good part, if not all of those funds,” will be used for the Canfor’s 2009 capital plan. Sitar says one project which will used those funds may be announced “shortly” while others will be announced in the new year.

 

Meantime, Canfor continues to take steps to keep supply of product down to match demand. CEO Jim Shepard says all Canfor operations will be shut down for two weeks over Christmas to accommodate holidays and market demands.  Shepard isn’t ruling out further curtailments “We are watching the markets week to week to ensure we re producing the amount of wood we need to match the demand of our valued customers, we will continue to watch it on a week to week basis.”

 

 Housing starts in the U.S. this month are down another 30% compared to last year when starts were already very low says Shepard, who predicts the dire conditions for the lumber markets will continue for some time yet. Shepard told a conference call this morning that “A meaningful recovery of the U.S. housing market in 2009 appears unlikely.” Canfor’s latest prediction is that recovery may start in the late 4^th quarter of 2009 and first quarter of 2010.

 

Shepard says the proactive way they have dealt with the downturn has left him confident that when things turn around Canfor will be a “player”.

 

Chief Financial Officer Tom Sitar says the $94. 2 million dollar loss recorded in the third quarter of this year was largely due to several “one time items” and if those items were removed the actual loss would only have been $3.5 million. That’s a significant improvement over the adjusted loss in the second quarter of more than $20 million.