Pope and Talbot Announces Downtime

Monday, October 08, 2007 01:01 PM

Pope & Talbot, Inc has announced the saw mill in Ft St. James will be shut down for two weeks starting on October 15^th. The Ft. St. James mill ,as well as Pope and Talbot’s sawmills in Grand Forks and Castlegar, will face the temporary shut down starting October 15^th to reduce the inventory of finished goods.

Pope and Talbot CEO Harold Stanton says the move is necessary due to the falling prices of softwood lumber products and the continued strengthening of the Canadian Dollar. "While unfortunate, the shutdowns are a necessary step to ensure the Company's profitability during these difficult times," said Stanton. "Moving forward, we will continue to make adjustments as the market dictates."

Pope and Talbot is also facing financial difficulties and all assets are for sale. The company has until the 15^th of October to either sell, or find some way to meet its financial obligations.

Late Friday, Canfor also announced it will be scheduling downtime at its lumber facilities, but that announcement did not provide any details of which mills would be impacted, or when the shut downs will take place.

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Posted on Monday, October 08, 2007 01:01 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: Parrothead on October 8 2007 9:10 PM

How many here think P&T will not re-open as a P&T mill or afer only 2 weeks??

Posted by: RUEZ on October 8 2007 9:48 PM

Considering they are having financial problems you may be on to something.

Posted by: owl on October 8 2007 11:30 PM

Whichever mill is the least productive may not re-open.

I do not know how much it will cost to actually shut down a mill with respect to severance, buy out of any contracts, commitments to the province for getting land to the "free to grow stage" etc. There may be guarantees, bonds, etc. in place to cover some of those costs.

Again, if one is in financial trouble, not something one would want to call upon unless absolutely necessary.

So, the financial "brains" of the organization are not likely taking a two week break.

Posted by: Harbinger on October 9 2007 5:29 PM

Just think, if Carole James and the NDP were in power now, maybe they could bail out Pope and Talbot with hundreds of millions of dollars. It sure worked out swell fer Skeena cellulose, dinnit?