NewPage Corp., Miamisburg, Ohio, has announced plant closings and consolidation steps that it says are “being taken to integrate NewPage and the former Stora Enso North America (SENA) facilities and services.” NewPage finishes its acquisition of SENA facilities in late 2007.
“Despite the permanent closures being announced today, we are merging the operations in a manner that will actually increase our 2008 North American production by 3 to 8 percent compared to the combined production in 2007,” says Mark A. Suwyn, chairman and CEO of NewPage.
The specific moves spelled out by Suwyn and NewPage include:
- Permanently closing the No. 11 paper machine in Rumford, Maine, which produces coated freesheet and groundwood papers for magazines and catalogs, by the end of February 2008. Approximately 60 employees will be affected by the shutdown.
- Permanently closing the pulp mill and two paper machines, Nos. 43 and 44, in Niagara, Wis., by the end of April 2008. The Niagara machines produce 230,000 tons of lightweight coated groundwood papers used in magazines and catalogs. Approximately 319 employees will be affected by the shutdown.
- Permanently closing the No. 95 paper machine in Kimberly, Wis., by the end of May 2008. The Kimberly mill produces coated freesheet papers for publication printing, and specialty papers for pressure-sensitive or glue-applied labels. Approximately 125 employees will be affected.
- Permanently close the Chillicothe, Ohio, converting facility by the end of November 2008 after some of the converting machines and volume are transferred to existing facilities in Luke, Md., and Wisconsin Rapids, Wis. Approximately 160 employees will be affected.
“These actions come from an extensive integration plan developed by a group of nearly 50 people from both companies and represent all the significant actions we expect to take to combine the two operations,” says Suwyn.
NewPage Corp. bills itself as the largest printing paper manufacturer in North America, based on production capacity, with more than $4.3 billion in pro forma net sales for the 12 months that ended September 30, 2007.
The company owns paper mills in Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin in the United States and Nova Scotia in Canada. The mills have a total annual production capacity of approximately 5.5 million tons of paper, including 4.3 million tons of coated paper, 920,000 tons of uncoated paper and 300,000 tons of specialty paper, as well as approximately 3.2 million tons of pulp.
As a producer of coated papers, NewPage is not a major consumer of secondary fiber, although it says in a 2007 position paper that “since 1989, the use of recovered fiber in NewPage products and its predecessor companies has more than doubled.”