Leading Stories

Multi-Color Corp. said it will close its Menomonee Falls plant and terminate the 29 employees at the facility. An exact date for the closing hasn't been determined but Multi-Color expects it to happen in April, according to a letter the company sent to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.

Late last month, the company stated it would conduct a holiday shutdown through the month of January, but the work stoppage will now carry over through the entire month of February.

Georgia-Pacific has given an update on a worker who was critically injured in a Thursday morning incident at the company's Pineland facility.

International Paper has announced formal plans to invest approximately $103 million to build and operate two natural gas power boilers to generate steam for its Containerboard Mill in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Construction is set to begin in the second quarter of this year and be fully operational by the end of 2025.

The $50 million in upgrades include restarting the mill's C2 paper machine, which will now produce new water-resistant paper grades that are intended to replace single-use plastic products.

The permanent closure of the pulp line at Canfor's Prince George mill was preventable, says Unifor.

The "major spill" started on Dec. 27 and is still continuing.

The Waukee Fire Department confirmed the fire originated in the bailing room of the building.

Maine Governor Janet Mills announced an award of $1,000,000 from the final round of the Forest Recovery Initiative of her Maine Jobs & Recovery Plan to ND Paper (NDP) for an upcoming project at NDP's Rumford Division to enhance the efficiency of its R15 packaging paper machine.

Domtar's Kingsport Mill recently produced its first 100% recycled containerboard. The milestone marks the culmination of a two-year, $350 million investment project to convert the former uncoated freesheet paper mill into Domtar's first 100% recycled packaging facility.

WorkSafe investigators called to scene, plant closed six days ahead of planned curtailment.

Fibre-based consumer packaging leader Graphic Packaging International ('Graphic Packaging') has announced it is moving its Bristol, UK beverage packaging manufacturing operations to a new, state-of-the-art facility nearby, creating up to 30 new jobs in the process.

Complementary capabilities, product offering, and customer base solidifies leadership position in priority high growth medical device packaging segment.

Mercer International Inc. reports that, due to a lack of appropriate fiber availability, its Celgar mill in British Columbia, Canada, is planning to take approximately three weeks of downtime. This curtailment is expected to commence in March 2023.

Around 1,300 employees may be affected by the plans.

The pulp line is expected to close by the end of the first quarter of 2023 and is anticipated to impact approximately 300 positions across the organization by the end of the year.

Central National Gottesman Inc. (CNG), a $9B global sales, marketing, and distribution leader in the pulp, paper, tissue, packaging, wood products, and metals industries, announced that it has signed a definitive purchase agreement to acquire S.P. Richards (SPR), an independent business products wholesaler based in Atlanta, Georgia. The closing is expected to take place on January 31, 2023.

This temporary reduction in output is expected to be mostly concentrated outside of Interfor's US South operating region.

Cosmo Specialty Fibers Inc. has gained new ownership following more than 12 years since the mill was bought by The Gores Group, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm, in 2010. The United Kingdom-based firm, Charlestown Investments, is the new owner.

Mondi plans to invest around €200 million in converting the existing lightweight coated mechanical paper machine at the mill into a high-quality, cost-competitive recycled containerboard machine with an annual capacity of around 420,000 tonnes.

Progroup has invested around Euro 72 million in the project at the site, which covers around 28,000 square metres, and created 50 new jobs.

International Paper intends to build a new 20,000-square-foot building at the Cedar Rapids mill that would be home to a boiler and water treatment plant. Together, they would provide steam power to the Cedar Rapids facility. Previously, the plant used the coal-powered Prairie Creek Station. However, that facility is being closed.

The indefinite curtailment of Perry Sawmill will impact approximately 126 employees and will reduce West Fraser's US lumber production by 100 million board feet.

Memphis, Tennessee-based International Paper is planning a $102 million expansion of its Cedar River Mill in southwest Cedar Rapids.

More than 480 paper mill workers from the Mahrts Mill in Cottonton, AL have been off the job after a dispute over contract agreements since October 2022.