Cascades sees production increase at Bear Island mill

Last week, Cascades Inc. reported its third-quarter 2025 earnings, and the Kingsey Falls, Quebec-based paper packaging company also provided an update on its Bear Island recycled containerboard mill in Ashland, Virginia.

The mill officially started up in May 2023 and has continued to ramp up production capacity. At the time of the startup, Cascades said the site was expected to have an annual production capacity of 465,000 tons of lightweight, recycled containerboard. In the third quarter of this year, the company reports that production at the mill increased 24 percent to just over 102,000 tons.

“We have continued to see this positive operational pace in October, and we are forecasting a strong end of 2025,” Cascades President and CEO Hugues Simon said during an earnings call Nov. 6.

According to Simon, the mill ran at 90 percent of its targeted ramp-up curve and 88 percent of its total production capacity for the quarter, while the mill is running at 80 percent capacity overall.

“If you look at the last six months, we saw consistent improvement from an operating rate standpoint or operating efficiencies,” he said of Bear Island. “We will continue to push on that to get to the 100 percent.

“We have now started to look at usage, so cost components … all the materials that we use [and] yield." He said this a main focus for the next six to 12 months will be how to get benefits from operating efficiencies and usage.

During the quarter, Cascades also closed a containerboard mill in Niagara Falls, New York—a move originally announced in July—with that tonnage being redistributed among the company’s existing mill network.

“Despite the ongoing uncertainty in the current economic environment, we are making good progress across many of these initiatives,” Simon said. “We are confident that the fundamentals for our company are strong, [we] and are steadfast in our commitment to continue to improve the financial profile, level of operational and commercial excellence and growth momentum of our company."