<b>Abitibi Taking More Downtime</b>

Abitibi-Consolidated announced that one of its paper machines at its Kenora, Ontario will be closed permanently June 15. Additionally, two other machines will be closed for at least the fall. The shutdowns will reduce the company’s newsprint capacity by 180,000 metric tons a year.

``We will be working to find economic ways to convert machine no.9 to produce value-added paper instead of newsprint. Machine no.10 will only restart when market conditions for newsprint improve,'' said Denis Jean, senior vice president, Northern Newsprint Operations.

The company also announced today that, in addition to more than 50,000 metric tons of market-related downtime taken in April, a further 50,000 metric tons will be taken in each of May and June at several of its North American newsprint mills, bringing the second quarter downtime total to over 150,000 metric tons.