Canfor’s plan to permanently shut down the pulp line at Prince George Pulp and Paper by March and potentially put as many as 300 mill workers out of work is not the only grim reality facing the north central B.C. wood industry.
The most likely pulp candidates for closure are Canfor’s Taylor mill, which was shut down in November and won’t be restarted until spring, as well as one of West Fraser’s two mills in Quesnel, Cariboo Pulp and Paper or Quesnel River Pulp. The pellet wood industry that took root in Quesnel and Williams Lake around 2008 as an efficient home heating source has expanded to 13 pellet plants in B.C. and that’s created a new sector that is competing with mills for pulp logs and increasing pressure on the forest industry.
He said increased competition for wood from the pellet industry resulted in pulp mills having to turn whole pulp logs into chips, which has driven up production costs dramatically.