by Web Editor | Feb 19, 2018 | News
SmartLam Eyes $22 Million Maine Expansion For CLT Production
The nation’s first manufacturer of cross-laminated timber plans to set up shop in Maine, with a goal of creating 100 jobs at a $22 million mill, officials said Friday.
SmartLam, LLC of Montana still seeks a mill site, but has committed to building a factory in Maine within 18 months. Founded in 2012, the company produces more than 1 million board feet of the engineered wood product per month and employs 40 people in Montana’s Flathead Valley, SmartLam President Casey Malmquist said. “It is down to two sites right now,” Malmquist said in a telephone interview on Friday. “I’m just waiting to get further feedback on both of those sites and then we will be making our decision.”
“I don’t want to disclose them because I don’t want to influence the deal,” he added. “I think if they can kind of come up organically on their own rather than be influenced by one another it would be a more straightforward deal.”
SmartLam is the second maker of cross-laminated timber, a composite wood strong enough to replace steel and concrete in some types of high-rise buildings, to announce Maine expansion plans this week.
LignaTerra Global LLC of Charlotte, North Carolina announced plans at Husson University on Tuesday to build a $30 million, 300,000-square-foot factory to produce CLT in Millinocket. The company hopes to break ground in July and start production in 12 months with more than 100 workers.
From Bangor Daily News: bangordailynews.com.
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by Web Editor | Feb 16, 2018 | News
A North Carolina manufacturer plans to create more than 100 jobs by becoming Maine’s first producer of a composite wood strong enough to replace concrete and steel in high-rise buildings.
LignaTerra Global LLC of Charlotte announced plans at Bangor’s Husson University on Tuesday to build a $30 million, 300,000-square-foot factory to produce cross-laminated timber. Planning to build on a 35-acre portion of Millinocket’s 1,400-acre former Katahdin Paper Co. LLC site, the company hopes to break ground in July and start production in 12 months, said Nick Holgorsen, CEO and co-founding partner of LignaTerra.
One of two cross-laminated timber manufacturers in the country, LignaTerra aims to be the first investor to revitalize the site since parent company Brookfield Asset Management closed Katahdin Paper in 2008, laying off 208 workers and crippling a Katahdin region economy that had been home to world-class papermaking for more than a century. The failure of a more recent effort — Cate Street Capital’s proposed pellet mill — left current site owner Our Katahdin, a nonprofit economic development group, about $1.5 million in inherited tax debt.
LignaTerra leaders declined to say how much of the $30 million they will provide. The project’s private investors will be announced in several weeks and the company is working to secure tax breaks, said Brien Walton, director of the Center for Family Business at Husson University, who helped broker the deal.
“The bottom line is that if they wanted to do it all cash, right now, that is something that could be done, but we are trying to get the right parties and the right partners and to aggregate something that will be beneficial to the region and also sustainable to the long term,” Walton said during Tuesday’s news conference.
From the Bangor Daily News: https://bangordailynews.com/2018/02/13/business/latest-bid-to-revive-shuttered-katahdin-mill-promises-100-jobs/
by Web Editor | Jan 8, 2018 | News
Roseburg Forest Products has announced that Phil Odom has been named business manager for the company’s plywood and lumber business, a newly created role that consolidates the reporting structure of plywood and lumber sales organization. Reporting to Odom are the central planning manager, the plywood field sales team, and sales managers for lumber, softwood plywood, and hardwood plywood.
Odom has had experience at BlueLinx Corporation where he served as vice president of national business development, and at Georgia-Pacific. At both companies, Odom managed sales, distribution, manufacturing, and operations teams. Bringing a breadth of experience in organizational leadership and team development to the role, Odom has developed national sales strategies and built out new channels, markets, and product lines.
Odom holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and marketing from Georgia Southern University. He has served as a board member of the Construction Suppliers Association and as an active member of both the North American Wholesale Lumber Association and the National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association.
Founded in 1936, Roseburg Forest Products is a privately owned company and a producer of particleboard, medium density fiberboard, and thermally fused laminates. Roseburg also manufactures softwood and hardwood plywood, lumber, LVL, and I-joists. The company owns and sustainably manages more than 600,000 acres of timberland in Oregon, North Carolina, and Virginia, as well as an export wood chip terminal facility in Coos Bay, Oregon.
From Woodworking Network: https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/roseburg-names-business-manager-plywood-and-lumber?ss=news,news,woodworking_industry_news,news,almanac_market_data,news,canadian_news
by Web Editor | Jul 26, 2017 | News
Egger Group has announced plans to build its first U.S. particleboard plant in Lexington, North Carolina. The Austrian-based panel producer will invest approximately $304 million for the first phase of the project, with the entire project expected to run about $700 million.
Construction is set to begin by the end of 2018, with production scheduled for 2020. The panel plant will create 400 direct jobs over the next six years, with an additional 370 jobs planned for later phases of the 15-year project.
The news was announced July 24, during a meeting with the North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, representatives of local authorities, company co-owner Michael Egger and Walter Schiegl, Egger Group Management Technology/Production.
Sources report the 4.5 million-square-foot production facility will be spread across more than 200 acres in an industrial park. The first stage of the project will involve the construction of a composite panel plant with coating capacities. The company said the North Carolina plant will feature state-of-the-art facilities and will enable it to better serve customers in North America.
“The planned production location in Lexington, North Carolina will play a decisive role for Egger’s increasing presence on the North American market for wood-based materials, as well as ensure product availability and delivery speed for our customers,” Schiegl said. Egger’s panel products are used in the manufacture of a variety of items, including laminate flooring, cabinetry, residential and commercial furniture, and casework.
From Woodworking Network: https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/news/woodworking-industry-news/egger-plans-700-million-particleboard-plant-north-carolina?ss=news,news,woodworking_industry_news,news,almanac_market_data,news,canadian_news
by Web Editor | Dec 21, 2016 | News
Arauco Announces Layoffs At North Carolina Plant
Arauco Panels USA, an American subsidiary of a Chilean plywood manufacturer, is cutting jobs in Chatham County.
That’s according to a WARN filed with the state of North Carolina this month. A WARN – Workforce Adjustment and Retraining Notification – is a filing that is required when a company closes a plant, cuts 500 jobs or eliminates one-third of its local positions. The move, effective Jan. 6, impacts 48 jobs in Moncure, according to the notice.
According to the WARN, the move is a downsizing – not a closure – of its particleboard facility, impacting jobs in a variety of functions, including human resources, finance, production and sales.
“The layoffs are due to a downturn over the last several months in the market,” reads the notice signed by Sally Polen, manager of human resources for Arauco North America. “Although our sales team has been working hard to combat the market conditions by revising pricing strategies and engaging our existing customers while actively seeking new customers, unfortunately, our efforts have not surpassed the market pressures on our volumes.”
The plant has “struggled” to maintain a normal order volume, the notice continues, adding that other measures the company has taken include reduced hours, reduced overtime and overall cuts in spending. Forecasts, the filing reads, show similar volume weakness in 2017.
From the Triangle Business Journal: bizjournals.com.
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