Paper Excellence has announced that a curtailment of production at its Powell River paper mill will be extended until at least mid-summer – but the company, which also owns Howe Sound Pulp and Paper (HSPP), said the Port Mellon pulp mill continues to run at capacity.
The shutdowns at the Powell River and Crofton mills began March 1.
“Current global conditions and recent events impacting Paper Excellence require us to extend the curtailment of paper operations at Powell River and Crofton,” vice-president of communications Graham Kissack said in a press release.
“Over the past six months, an exceptional intersection of events has negatively impacted our operations including: a material shortage of economic forest fibre on B.C.’s coast; a significant external malware attack which rendered our paper business enterprise systems inoperable for a period of time, and from which we continue to recover as we work to restore all affected operations; and COVID-19, which has materially impacted the supply chain for many of the paper products that we manufacture.”
Kissack told Coast Reporter April 17 that operations at HSPP, which has been out of the paper business for several years, are not affected by the curtailments.
Kissack said while the shortage of fibre supply has had some impact on HSPP, the demand for its products remains high.
“A lot of the product that’s made at Howe Sound goes into hygiene products like tissues, toilet paper and other hygiene consumables.”
HSPP and the company’s other mills have been working under an “all-encompassing and stringent COVID-19 operating plan,” he said.
“We’ve been on top of things pretty aggressively and our employees have been treating the situation very, very seriously and so we’re very happy with the performance,” said Kissack, adding that the company intends to continue running HSPP at full capacity and does not foresee the need for temporary shutdowns or layoffs.
HSPP is the largest private-sector employer on the Sunshine Coast.
In its announcement about Powell River and Crofton, the company also said it is “hopeful that decisions of municipal, provincial and federal governments with respect to mitigation measures offered to help maintain business during the COVID-19 upheaval will provide immediate needed relief for our industry.”
– With files from Powell River Peak and Canadian Press
