XML FeedsWest Fraser closes Kitimat mill
Oct 29, 2009 | In Mill Closures & Layoffs | 5 feedbacks »
West Fraser Timber is closing its Eurocan paper mill in Kitimat, British Columbia on January 31st, 2010.
535 people will lose their job.
After years of cost cuts and reviews of Eurocan's operations, West Fraser president and chief executive officer Hank Ketcham said closing the mill is “the only reasonable alternative.”
West Fraser said the 40-year-old mill, which produces linerboard and kraft paper, has struggled over the years with high costs and negative returns.
Read more:
West Fraser to close Kitimat paper mill (Globe and Mail)
5 comments
Comment from: jimrow [Member] 
It's a little more than ironical that Eurocan earned credits of an estimated $ 20 million from the Green Transformation Programme and yet the monies will be spent at West Fraser's Cariboo and Hinton mills, not at Eurocan where there would have been plenty of worthwhile "green" investment projects.
29/10/09 @ 11:52
Comment from: tierraforest [Member]
I will buy the mill... what a great product line.
29/10/09 @ 13:28
Comment from: walkernewberg [Member]
What a sad but typical papermill story. Too many Canadian mills shutdown before the management and the unions and the employees and the town could honestly say: 'We gave it everything we had! We were a team, we tried every reasonable idea, we compromised, we lengthened it's life by x years. Now we are sad but we're proud of our effort." The stories worth telling our grandchildren are the "little Engine that could " ones. Who will brag about Prince Albert or Grand Falls? "We sure showed them! " However, there are lights on out there. SFK, Harmac, Blue Heron, Kapuskasing. They are the survivors who were supposed to fail years ago. When a mill runs everyone has choices, stay with reduced work, pay, and benefits; or leave on my terms. When a mill shuts everyone loses: owners, employees, pensioners, towns.
30/10/09 @ 03:29
Comment from: a guy who knows [Member]
Ridiculous sentimentality. Just because you have a business, doesn't mean people want what you are buying. When a mill shuts, everybody doesn't lose. The surviving mills are left with a healthier, more stable environment, and those who are out of a job can move on to better life than the one they would have been stuck with. Grow up.
30/10/09 @ 08:14
Comment from: disgruntled [Member]
From A Guy who knows, your post may be the most intelligent and accurate and concise assesment posting I have seen since I joined this blog a year ago. You summed it up exatcly as it is.
30/10/09 @ 12:08
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