NewPage Taking Downtime at Canadian Mill

Based on its assessment of current market and economic conditions, NewPage Corp. has decided to take downtime on both paper machines at its Port Hawkesbury mill in Nova Scotia, Canada. The downtime will begin Sept. 10 for the mill’s PM1 newsprint machine and Sept. 16 for the PM2 supercalendered machine.

The decision was based on a combination of factors, including unfavorable U.S./Canadian exchange rates, as well as high utility and shipping costs, which have rendered its Port Hawkesbury mill operations unprofitable for more than a year.

NewPage expects to fulfill certain pre-existing orders for its supercalendered papers from its mill in Duluth, Minn., but does not produce newsprint from any other mill location and therefore will be unable to serve these customers during the downtime.

“Despite the continued dedication and efforts of our team at Port Hawkesbury to drive cost improvements, extremely challenging economic conditions at this location have forced us to make this difficult, but necessary business decision,” said George Martin, president and CEO for NewPage.