Columbia Forest Products is reopening its Rutherglen veneer mill, east of North Bay, after a five-year shutdown.
Gary Gillespie, vice-president of Columbia’s Northern Operations, announced Dec. 15 that Columbia is in the “intermediate stages” of preparations to reopening the shuttered veneer facility, which closed in 2010 in the face of imports from China, a strong Canadian dollar, and a major downtown in the forest products industry.
Seventy employees lost their jobs. At its peak period, the mill employed 200.
“We have been anxiously awaiting the moment when we could announce that it was time to fire up the boilers and bring folks back to work at the Rutherglen facility,” said Gillespie in a news release.
Columbia is investing approximately US$1.5 million into the facility in preparation for a late first quarter restart this year.
“Today, we have confidence that we are entering a time when we will continue to experience strengthening markets for Rutherglen’s products,” said Gillespie in a statement. “At the same time, we’re counting on significant support from local and provincial government officials as we work with them to secure long-term log supplies for the plant and assistance for training new employees at the facility.
“Although it took longer than we had anticipated, we never gave up on the idea of re-establishing ourselves as a going concern in Rutherglen. We are very high on Ontario, its hardwood resources and, most importantly, its smart, hard-working people,” Gillespie added.
Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, Columbia is North America’s largest manufacturer of hardwood plywood and hardwood veneer.
Last summer, the company installed a new $15-million lathe line at its Hearst mill.
The company said bringing Rutherglen back online will boost Columbia’s position as the leading supplier of rotary-peeled birch, maple and red oak hardwood veneer to the hardwood plywood stock panel business in North America.
Columbia officials did not make themselves available for comment.
Mattawa-Bonfield director of economic development Jeff McGirr has been assisting the company for a couple of months by collecting resumés in its preparations to ramp up.
Some of the original workforce from five years ago still remains in the area.
He was unable to disclose how many jobs will be needed at start-up except to say it will be a “significant amount.”
He views the reopening of the mill as the “major component in our region’s economic development strategy,” which includes the five area municipalities of Bonfield, Calvin, Mattawa, Mattawan, Papineau-Cameron Nipissing, adding it should serve as a catalyst to attract other complementary service business.
He couldn’t disclose if the company is applying to the Ministry of Natural Resources for a Crown wood allotment or what the $1.5 million is specifically earmarked for.
The mill never had a wood allotment the last time it was in operation, but rather a wood directive, or a first right of refusal on certain species, McGirr said.
The company used different species of hardwood depending on the production line and what product they were making at the time.
McGirr said the company has done an “absolutely fantastic job” in maintaining the facility over the years.
“Driving by, you wouldn’t think it was a shuttered industrial facility. The reality is Columbia has always kept key staff there and kept maintenance up to spic and span standards.”
McGirr is expecting more good news in 2016 with the anticipated restart of a shuttered sawmill property near Mattawa, which was owned by Tembec until it was closed in 2008.
After a failed attempt by new ownership, BioSila, to start a wood pellet operation between 2010 and 2012, the property was picked up by a southern Ontario company, BioNorth Technology Group, in 2014, with plans to make biodiesel fuel. News of a restart was to be announced before March.
“We’re going to rock and roll around here in 2016,” said McGirr.
