New announcements this week and last point to an increase in softwood lumber production in Canada in the next year or so.
First up is San Group, out of Langley, BC, announced Friday The 39-year-old San Group is doubling down on its commitment to Port Alberni with a new $70-million lumber manufacturing facility that will employ 135 people. San Group already owns Coulson Manufacturing in Port Alberni, which produces cedar building materials.
The facility will use under-utilized fibre — small logs of hemlock, cedar and fir — from the Island and turn it into finished products. The announcement came less than a week after San Group announced it will start a third shift at its Coulson Mill on the outskirts of Port Alberni, expanding its workforce, according to Alberni Valley News.
San Group has purchased from Catalyst Paper a 25-acre site just north of Catalyst’s operation in Port Alberni, said Business in Vancouver. The site is not being used, but has an office building, warehouse and auto shop. The new mill will manufacture products for the domestic market, and the Island in particular, noting loads of lumber are ferried across from the mainland every day.
Terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but it could see Catalyst — now owned by Paper Excellence Canada — providing steam to power machinery in the new facility, and San Group providing a new source of wood chips for Catalyst’s paper mill.
Construction of the new sawmill is scheduled to begin in the spring, and San Group predicts it could be operational very quickly and cutting wood by the early summer.
Meanwhile in eastern Canada, Resolute Forest Products, based in Montreal, QC, said Thursday it’s investing $40 million in its northwestern Ontario operations to reduce emissions, increase capacity, and modernize equipment. Resolute says it plans to spend $14.7 million to improve energy efficiency and $14.3 million to improve pulp capacity, reduce costs, and maintain assets at the Thunder Bay, ON, mill. It also plans to spend $13.5 million in maintenance at the operation this year.
The company says it will also spend $5.6 million to modernize operations at its Thunder Bay sawmill and $5.4 million on general optimization of its sawmills in Thunder Bay, Ignace, and Atikokan, ON, that combined will create 25 full-time jobs, said CTV News Toronto.
Resolute says the upgrades are expected to increase capacity by about 50 million board feet of lumber, with about 90 per cent of that new capacity destined for exports.