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Fortress Global announces downtime amid soft demand for dissolving pulp

Fortress Global Enterprises is temporarily issuing a market curtailment at its Fortress Specialty Cellulose (FSC) Mill in Thurso, Quebec.

The company, which is currently undergoing a strategic and financing initiative, says that the ongoing United States-China trade dispute, as well as weakening Chinese domestic textile and apparel consumption, have destabilized the demand for dissolving pulp and caused a significant decline in pricing.

As a result, Fortress’s temporary market curtailment strategy will allow the company to preserve the option of restarting the mill once prices rebound.

The company will take market downtime at the FSC mill as of October 8, 2019 for an unspecified interim period. Market downtime will allow Fortress to manage its dissolving pulp inventory build-up, which has resulted from the recent uncertainty in pricing and demand, and execute on the strategic initiative.

“This market curtailment strategy will allow us to focus our efforts on executing on the strategic initiative, as well as planning the optimized restart of the mill,” says Giovanni Iadeluca, chief executive officer of Fortress Global Enterprises. “We have also proactively allocated resources to enable us to restart the FSC mill on an expedited basis in order to take advantage of any significant rebound in dissolving pulp pricing. We continue to be confident in the future pricing and prospects for dissolving pulp as the market adjusts to currently volatile conditions, as we believe that the underlying supply and demand fundamentals remain stable.”

Fortress Global Enterprises also operates in the renewable energy generation sector through its cogeneration facility at its FSC mill. Fortress operates its bioproducts business through Fortress Advanced Bioproducts, which has laboratory and pilot plant facilities in Vancouver.