Five years after it was mothballed, EACOM’s sawmill in Ear Falls in northwestern Ontario fired up for production in early August. The annual production target is 70 to 75 million board feet. A second shift, planned for 2015, would boost that to 140 to 150 million, according to Northern Ontario Business Friday.
The company is starting 58 employees on a single shift with aims on topping out the workforce at close to 100 when a second shift is added early next year.
The Montreal-based forestry giant has invested more than $5 million to retrofit the plant with upgrades to the electrical system, planer mill, optimizer scanner, and other machinery in the four to five months leading up to the August 5 production startup.
Wood supply isn’t a problem through an overlapping licence with Domtar, the Sustainable Forest Licence holder in the area. The mill has access to 660,000 cubic metres annually of softwood, harvested from the Trout Forest.
