Trade Northern Ontario

Shutdown puts 500 workers out for week

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Continuing soft markets for both kraft and paper products will result in a weeklong shutdown at AbitibiBowater‘s Fort Frances mill.
Mill production will cease between this Sunday and Nov. 30.
Mill manager John Harrison said Monday that the shutdown will affect 500 of mill‘s 675 employees.
The mill has to take a week of downtime to balance production with demand, he said.
After cutting 28,000 tonnes of capacity in the third quarter, AbitibiBowater plans to trim 35,000 tonnes monthly in the fourth quarter, primarily at mills that use recycled paper.
These include facilities in Thorold and Thunder Bay where its newsprint mill is taking two weeks of downtime.
In 2009, the company expects to take 50,000 tonnes of temporary monthly downtime at a variety of sites.
As for future downtime at Fort Frances, Harrison said he “wouldn‘t want to speculate on that.”
In Thunder Bay, the company‘s big pulp and newsprint mill will be down until this Friday while its stud mill will start up again next Monday.
Reduced demand for pulp and newsprint, coupled with increased costs and high inventories, are behind those shutdowns, the company says.
While up to 600 mill workers are affected at the newsprint mill, about 120 employees are off at the Thunder Bay sawmill.

By BRYAN MEADOWS
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
The Chronicle Journal

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