Brink Forest Products

By Cheryl Jahn

Forest is changing

Mills closures are not over

Jun 26, 2019 | 4:42 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – The latest casualty of a downturn in forestry is the Conifex mill in Fort St. James. Instead, Conifex plans to sell that mill and the forest licence that comes with it. But there’s good and bad news to that story. The good new: there will be a mill in Fort .St. James. The bad news: a mill isn’t built overnight and Conifex has said conditions mean it will not be in operation in the mean time.

“My opinion would that this is a favourable development,” says Russ Taylor with Forest Economic Advisors. “The Fort St. James mill, in our opinion, was not a very good mill. We expected that mill to close. The fact the tenure sale will include a re-build of a newer, smaller mill, perhaps, is very encouraging.”

He predicts there will be more mills to close in the coming months, as companies try to align their operations with an increasingly lower fibre supply. And the picture is going to get a little bit tighter with stumpage set to rise on July 1st.

Brink Forest Products relies on the residuals from sawmilling operations and they’re adjusting.

“Where we normally run 10-hour shifts, we’re running nine-hour shifts now. So what we’re trying to do is keep our operations going and not have a total shut down, but rather reduce the hours.”

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He says, as far as he’s concerned, a reduced forest sector will be the new-norm for many years to come.