PAPER CLIPS

Pulp & Paper, Jan 2005

BRIEF NEWS AND REVIEWS FROM AROUND THE INDUSTRY

* Blue Ridge Paper Products received federal money to help repair $32 million worth of flood damage it sustained at its Canton, N.C., bleached board and tablet mill during the last hurricane season. The mill shut down 23 days in September due to the hurricanes, the company said.

* Norampae Inc.'s 130,000-tpy recycled corrugating medium and linerboard, and gypsum board mill in Burnaby, B.C., restarted on Dec. 1 after a strike. Union workers at the mill on Nov. 25-26 voted 65.3% in favor of returning to work-under the threat from Norampae that the mill would be dosed if a final offer was not supported, Communication, Energy & Paperworkers Union of Canada Local No. 1129 said in a report.

* Stockton Pacific Enterprises Inc. is in discussions to sell its 210,000-mtpy market pulp mill in Samoa, Calif., to Hong Kong's Lee & Man Paper Mfg. Co., the second-largest Containerboard producer in China with more than 1 million mtpy of capacity, contacts told Pulp & Paper Week. A contact said Lee & Man currently buys about 15% of the mill's monthly output. If Lee & Man acquires the Samoa mill, it would want to have it produce mostly unbleached kraft pulp for their primarily recycled Containerboard production. Lee & Man makes testliner, kraft top linerboard, and corrugating medium at two mills in China.

* The British Columbia Supreme Court approved liquidation for the former New Skeena Forest Product Inc's assets, including a 350,000-mtpy market NBSK pulp mill, after a potential last-minute buyer failed. The court previously gave the unnamed suitor 10 days to finalize an acquisition after it bid just more than C$17.5 million. But the suitor couldn't complete financing, and the company's assets were approved for auction and private sale.

* Norampae inc. opened a new C$5-million water treatment plant at its Mississauga, Ont., Containerboard mill that will enable the company to recover part of a city surcharge on water paid for the past three years. Norampae pres./CEO Marc-Andre Depin forecast that the new plant would pave the way to future expansion at Mississauga.

* Weyerhaeuser renamed its pulp business Weyerhaeuser Cellulose Fibers, saying the new name better reflects its focus on developing unique fibers to meet specific customer needs.

* After incrementally raising its softwood output throughout 2004, P&A will split the output at its 465,000-mtpy Alabama River Pulp Co, market pulp facility in Perdue Hill, Ala., to produce 50% SBSK pulp beginning in January, contacts told Pulp & Paper Week. P&W runs a newer SBSK mill at the same location called Alabama Pine Pulp Co., which produces 480,000 mtpy of market pulp, a contact said. P&W's Sept. 14 closure of an NBHK market pulp mill in Nackawic, N.B., and its anticipated swing in production at Alabama River will bring the firm's total market pulp capacity to an estimated 890,000 mtpy, about 75% of which will be softwood.

* Can-Am Machinery purchased the assets of the former Water Fiber's 87,000-mtpy deinked pulp mill in Port Huron, Mich., saying it would sell the equipment and property. The mill was built for $77 million and began operating in 1996, but in September 1998, Blue Water filed for Ch. 11 bankruptcy protection after going into debt and facing depressed market prices.

* Appleton introduced MoistureBloc for Corrugated, a linerboard that features an exclusive moisture barrier coating. The product is repulpable and 100% recyclable. Boxes typically have wax or poly-based coatings that make them more difficult to recycle, the company said, but MoistureBloc for Corrugated is 100% recyclable, the company said.

* Domtar Inc. announced plans to gather all Domtar-owned merchant operations (Buntin Reid, JBR/La Maison du Papier, The Paper House, and RIS Paper) under a single umbrella, the Domtar distribution group, thereby creating the fifth-largest paper merchant organization in North America, the company said.

* Canadian National Railway Co., Canadian Pacific Railway, and Norfolk Southern Corp, signed an agreement to share some trains and tracks in central Canada and the U.S. Northeast to speed up shipments by as much as two days, according to the Globe and Mail. The agreement became effective Nov. 19.

* Union Pacific Corp. and Canadian National Railway Co, agreed to redirect shipments away from Chicago, a major gateway that has been plagued with congestion. More freight will get routed to the less-used interchange points of Superior, WIs., Salem, III., and Memphis, Tenn., according to Union Pacific. The change could speed up shipments by a day or two and will affect about 44,000 railcars a year, according to The New York Times. The agreement, which is phased in over a period of three months, aims also to help control skyrocketing freight costs, and improve capacity and efficiency.

* Caraustar Industries Inc. has a 30% interest in a joint venture called Paperlink International LLCP that expects to sell more than 400,000 tonnes of recovered paper in China in 2005. The joint venture is comprised of Caraustar's recovered fiber group, Main West Development Ltd., Ken Grenier, Mike Davies, and James Chang. Main West Development Ltd. is a Chinese manufacturer of coated duplex paperboard and recycled corrugating medium. The joint venture will supply recovered fiber to Main West and sell fiber to third-party mills in China.