Thunder Bay Fine Papers Inc. has announced the appointment of Mr. John Hitchman as President and Chief Operating Officer effective immediately.

Mr. Hitchman has had a 38-year career with increasing responsibilities through “hands-on” leadership in manufacturing, technical services, and strategic planning. Hitchman has been a team leader in six successful turnarounds, including Australian Paper, the coated papers division of AMCOR, Australia, and is a certified instructor in the Kepner-Tregoe process, a systematic, analytical, disciplined approach to problem solving and decision analysis.

Mr. Hitchman was Associate Professor of Engineering at Thunder Bay’s Lakehead University, and lectured in Confederation College’s Business Management Program.

Thunder Bay Fine Papers Inc. is a 200,000 ton per year coated paper mill located in Thunder Bay Ontario, The mill was shuttered in January 2006 and acquired in late 2007 by a group of private investors. The operation has been undergoing extensive rebuilding to improve safety, quality, costs and equipment efficiency. The restart of paper machine # 8 has been very successful and it is producing world class quality coated paper at an accelerated production rate of 260 tons per day. Paper machine # 5 is scheduled to come back on line in the first week of August, 2008. Paper machine # 6 will be the last machine to be restarted on completion of modifications and upgrades.

Other Recent ForestTalk.com coverage of Thunder Bay Fine Papers:
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UPM-Kymmene Group, the Finnish company that owns the closed-down paper mill in Miramichi, New Brunswick, has just been granted permission to export pulpwood from New Brunswick’s Crown land.

The Miramichi groundwood and paper mill was closed in December. More than 500 people lost their job.

UPM was originally granted permission to cut wood on provincially owned land until the end of August and a provincial cabinet order is now allowing the company to export the pulpwood to Nova Scotia, Quebec and Maine.

The province decided to all the export of the wood because of the diminished demand for the wood in New Brunswick due to the reduced number of pulp mills.

“It’s not always pleasant when you have to export wood outside of the province. I would love for every stick of the wood to be able to be processed within New Brunswick, but at the end of the day if nobody wants that wood then we have to look at another venue,” said Natural Resources Minister Donald Arseneault. “So if the company can make some money by selling it outside, then we have to look at that option.”

Source:
UPM allowed to export Crown wood (CBC)

A Judge in British Columbia has given the employee group of the Harmac mill one more week to come up with a plan to buy and save their pulp mill in Nanaimo.

In the meantime, the judge ordered that Harmac mill will be shut down starting tomorrow to reduce costs, as requested by the receiver for bankrupt Pope & Talbot.

The plant employs about 400 people and supplies chips to Western Forest Products Inc.

Western Forest Products is prohibited by the judge’s order from ending its agreement with Harmac while the employees try again to rescue the mill by purchasing it.

The employees group had originally requested two more weeks to put together their bid, but the judge only granted them one week. One of the unresolved issues standing in the way of a successful bid is about $6 million in vacation pay that’s owed to the employees.

There are other parties interesting in buying the mill, but they not interested in running a pulp mill. They are interested in the property only.

Source:
B.C. judge gives employee group last chance to save Harmac pulp mill (The Canadian Press)