Great Northern Paper Co. reports that it will re-start PM 5 at its East Millinocket, Maine, USA, mill, restoring 37 jobs. No 5, to begin production by the first week of September, will be the second machine operating at the mill since it reopened last October.
The company, owned by Cate Street Capital, Portsmouth, N.H. (purchased from Brookfield Asset Management of Toronto, Ont., Canada in September 2011), is already advertising for experienced pulp and paper workers, President and CEO Richard Cyr told the local Bangor Daily News. Among the positions available are eight salaried management-level posts, four jobs in the wood room, four in the grinding room, three in the warehouse, six maintenance jobs, and 12 positions to staff the paper machine.
When the mill resumed operations last October, PM 5 began producing virgin newsprint, but operations were shifted to PM 6 because it allowed the mill to increase production, and PM 5 was shutdown again, according to Cyr. The restart of PM 5 by early September will add some 12,000 – 14,000 tons of newsprint production to the 150,000 produced by PM 6 in 2012. In 2013, plans are to produce 50,000 tons on PM 5.
The two East Millinocket machines produce a variety of grades from newsprint and telephone directory to book papers.
Brookfield Asset Management had closed Great Northern's nearby Millinocket, Maine mill in 2008, followed by closure of the East Millinocket mill's doors in April 2011. When Cate Street Capital restarted the East Millinocket mill in October 2011, 215 employees were put back to work. Since then, Great Northern has hired an additional 20 workers.
Cate Street Capital's Thermogen Industries subsidiary is planning a wood pellet production facility at the Millinocket mill. Beginning in the summer of 2013, the company plans to produce some 110,000 tpy of wood pellets for sale in Europe, according to the Bangor Daily News report.
TAPPI
http://www.tappi.org/