Tembec is indefinitely idling a coated paper mill in St. Francisville, LA. A target date of July 31 has been set, a…
Tembec is indefinitely idling a coated paper mill in St. Francisville, LA. A target date of July 31 has been set, at which point roughly 540 employees will be put out of work.
The mill has a capacity of 325,000 tons of coated and specialty papers, which are primarily used in catalogues, magazines and cover stock.
The company cited several factors as being responsible for the closure, namely a challenging market situation in terms of price and demand, prohibitive energy prices and high manufacturing costs at the site.
While there has been progress during the past year, the overall financial performance of this site has been and continues to be unacceptable, executive vice president and president of the companys paper group Dan Alexander said.
Significant steps were taken in 2006 to lower the operating costs of this facility and upgrade the product mix. Despite these changes, this facility continues to be hampered by high energy costs, low machine productivity and difficult market conditions.
Although the company declined to speculate on the specifics of measures that might be taken in response to the shut down, Tembec has said it is reviewing the full range of alternatives for this site.
Decisions of this nature are never easy to make, and Tembec regrets the impact of todays announcement on employees, their families and the St. Francisville community, Alexander said.
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