Staff
Paper machine #6 now won’t start up until the beginning of June.
Idled at the local AbitibiBowater mill at the beginning of March, it initially was expected to be back online April 4 and then rescheduled for May 3.
“The overall market for glossy printing grades in North America continues to be very poor,” mill manager John Harrison said.
“As such, we just don’t have the orders to support the operation of #6 at this time.”
As previously reported, paper machines #5 and #7 were idled from March 22-April 4, during which time the kraft mill also ceased operations.
These scheduled shutdowns were due to poor market conditions for AbitibiBowater’s paper products.
In other news, Harrison noted the new biomass boiler continues to go through its commissioning phase.
“We are very pleased with the progress the guys are making bringing it online,” he said. “We’ve made significant progress.
“We still have a ways to go, but we’re ahead of the start-up curve that we had set for ourselves,” he added.
Harrison said the biomass boiler has been running every day.
“It is a full-time operation. It is a steam supply for the paper mill in Fort Frances and it is also generating power in the steam turbine,” he explained, noting about 75 percent of the steam now being generated is coming from burning biomass, with the balance coming from natural gas.
“We’re shooting to get to 96 percent of the steam coming from biomass. We have a ways to go, but we are still in the commissioning phase,” Harrison remarked.
“We had a start-up curve that was about six-eight months long in total. But like I said, the guys have managed to stay ahead of that curve since we started in January.”
While Harrison could not comment on any aspects of the company’s financial restructuring or its potential impact here, he did confirm the mill still has contracts with operators to haul biomass from the bush and the storage pile to the boiler site.
