Assets of the shuttered Bowater Mersey Paper mill in Nova Scotia, shut down in June 2012 by Resolute Forest Products, were sold off in 3,200 separate lots this past week. Sale items ranged from trucks, pumps, and motors, to paper mill specific machinery such as chip handling equipment and an entire wastewater treatment plant.
The auction house hopes to generate $3 million in sales from the mill assets. This reportedly is the third Canadian pulp mill auctioned off in three months.
According to CBC News, while the Bowater assets were being auctioned off, at the 90-year-old mill site federal and provincial officials announced more government assistance for Cellu-Fuel, a small startup that is moving into the old Bowater property. Cellu-Fuel intends to make diesel from low value wood fiber in a small petrochemical pilot plant later this year.
The project is getting a $500,000 loan from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. Last year, the company got a $1.5-million loan from the province of Nova Scotia. When it starts up, the pilot project will produce 1.5 million liters of diesel per year and employ between five and seven people. If it ramps up to full commercial production, 30 people would be employed.
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