Leading Stories

Starting April 20, 2020 the St. Maries, Idaho plywood facility will halt production for two weeks and curtailments may be extended depending on market conditions. All other businesses, including lumber mills in Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, and Arkansas, continue to operate, but are closely monitoring market conditions.

The Swanson Group is laying off 300 workers from its plywood mill in Glendale and cutting the pay of those still working due to a shortage of orders, as businesses grind to a halt during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the global impacts of COVID-19 continue to evolve, there is the potential that further adjustments to operating plans may be required.

A DuPont employee has died due to COVID-19 complications and four other employees have tested positive at the facility in Chesterfield.

They say the two cases involved workers on different shifts. The first case was confirmed on March 26 and the second on March 31.

Several crews responded to a call for a fire at the Kimberly-Clark Corp. plant located in Beech Island on Thursday morning.

Freeman Lumber announced Thursday that the Greenfield-based outfit could no longer afford to operate due to a lack of markets for wood chips following the closure of the Northern Pulp mill earlier this year.

Mondi will not pay a final dividend for 2019, it said on Thursday, as it cuts costs and capital spending after seeing a deterioration in its order book in Europe and South Africa from the end of March.

Smurfit Kappa has launched a new 'Design for Help' portfolio of products to help alleviate some of the current challenges being experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

There are 650 employees working at Ortviken paper mill. Ortviken produces coated and uncoated paper for magazines, catalogues and commercial print. The production capacity is 775,000 tonnes per annum.

Sappi's board of directors and the group and regional leadership teams from Europe, North America and Southern Africa have volunteered to take a 10% reduction in salaries or fees for the three months ending June 30. This is in recognition of the uncertain trading environment that will persist across the world for some time, in light of COVID-19.

A worker notified management that their tests results came back positive for COVID-19, according to Tom Srother, Senior Communications Manager at Georgia-Pacific. This worker has been out of work since March 30.

The company said it identified other workers who may have come in close contact with the employee. They are now in self-quarantine.

The former site of the White Pigeon Paper Company -- now owned and operated by Graphic Packaging International -- has been added to the state's list of PFAS contamination sites.

As part of the #RollingItForward initiative, Mercedes-Benz Canada and its dealer network are working with Kruger Products to deliver the essentials to front-line healthcare professionals--allowing them to focus on their critical work helping people all over the country.

West Fraser says it will further reduce its SPF production by 30M to 40M board feet of production per week which represents between 45 and 60% of SPF production.

Quad/Graphics Inc. said it has temporarily furloughed employees throughout the company and suspended operations at a number of its plants.

The company is planning reductions in plywood production of 25-35% and in EWP volumes of 20-40% depending on location, in comparison to 1Q levels. The reductions in production are expected to be implemented through a combination of periodic curtailments and reductions in operating schedules at specific facilities.

Mercer International Inc. reports that its joint venture Cariboo pulp mill in British Columbia, Canada will be taking approximately 4 weeks of downtime starting on or about April 20, 2020, resulting in an approximate reduction of NBSK production of 30,000 tonnes of which Mercer's share is 15,000 tonnes.

IT Tech Packaging, Inc. announced that its tissue paper production lines are now running at full production capacity to fulfill orders. The average selling price of tissue paper increased 8% from USD $836 per tonne to USD $903 per tonne in the first quarter, resulting from growing demand because of Covid-19.

Clearwater Paper confirmed the first positive case of COVID-19 among the workforce at its Lewiston mill Monday.

Paperitalo Publications is doing a follow-up survey regarding the coronavirus and how it's affecting the pulp and paper industry.

Company to idle Kingsport, Tennessee mill and Ashdown, Arkansas A62 paper machine for three months.

In this project, Klabin S.A. is carrying out an expansion of its existing facility in Paraná State in southern Brazil. By further promoting the use of biofuel it is expected to control the GHG emission. This project will contribute to the development of Brazil's sustainable forest industry and to strengthening the supply chains.

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting global demand for forest products. In response, effective April 6, 2020, Conifex Timber Inc. will temporarily curtail operations at its Mackenzie, British Columbia, Canada sawmill for two weeks.