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NEWPRO closes its Wanham plant
Tuesday January 17, 2006 Northern Engineered Wood Products Inc. (NEWPRO) has ceased operations of its particleboard plant in Wanham.
The closure will effect approximately 50 employees.
“This is a sad day for all the employees who have worked so hard in this facility,” said Richard Norton, General Manager of NEWPRO. “But a lack of available fibre supply and costs increases in electricity in this de-regulated market are significant factors in our decision. We have already been severely impacted by the rise in the Canadian dollar over the last couple of years. These issues combined with the inability to pass cost increases on to the markets have made this facility uneconomical to operate.”
The Wanham plant was originally built in 1998-99 by Agrifibre Industries to operate using fescue straw as an input fibre. After only a couple of months operating, that facility was placed into receivership. NEWPRO purchased the assets of Agrifibre in March of 2000 and over an 11 month period, converted the plant to a wood based particleboard plant utilizing sawdust and shavings from area saw mills. The plant had an annual capacity of 90 million square feet (5/8” basis).
NEWPRO continues to operate a facility located in Smithers, B.C. where the focus for that plant is melamine coated panels and value added products.
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