News Forestry Pulp
Pulp mill waste wood project receives $540K from FESBC

A fibre utilization project that delivered chipped waste wood to a B.C. pulp mill has received nearly $540,000 in funding from the Forest Enhancement Society of BC (FESBC).

The project, managed by Westland Resources Ltd., moved over 19,000 cubic metres – about 475 truckloads – of uneconomic low-quality logs from three forest harvesting licences held in the Terrace, B.C. area last winter.

Two of the licences are held by First Nation companies Kitselas Forestry Limited Partnership (KFLP) and Kalum Ventures Ltd (KVL), and one by Skeena Sawmills.

The fibre was chipped at Skeena Sawmill’s whole-log chipper in Terrace and the fibre was then shipped to Harmac Pacific’s pulp mill near Nanaimo.

It is anticipated that an additional 600 truckloads of normally uneconomic fibre will be used this summer and fall by KFLP and/or KVL.

If not for the initiative, the low-quality wood fibre would have been left in slash piles to be burned as the purchase price for the pulp-quality fibre at the time in these areas was less than the cost of delivering it to the coastal pulp mills.

Oftentimes, Canadian pulp is used to make many products including cloth (rayon), toothpaste, ice cream, nail polish, makeup, disinfecting wipes, medications (as an inert carrier for the medicine), paint, ping pong balls and LCD screens.

“Many of the forests in the Terrace area contain up to 50 per cent low-quality fibre, which is difficult to use economically,” says Gord Pratt, RPF, operations manager, FESBC.

“We were very supportive of providing funding, which allows for the coastal pulp mills to use of this lower-quality fibre and increase the forest sector jobs in the Terrace area.”

This project supported the province’s StrongerBC $1.5-billion economic recovery plan.