Cascades to build new mill
By Canadian Packaging Staff
Converting Sustainability Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec Cascades Inc. construction Greenpac Jamestown Container Norampac Recycled linerboardNew mill in Niagara Falls will increase linerboard production.
Cascades Inc. of Kingsey Falls, Que., has announced the construction of a new 540K/tpy light-weight recycled containerboard mill in Niagara Falls, NY.
Cascades’ Norampac division and its partners, including pension fund manager Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, Jamestown Container and one other unnamed partner will build the Greenpac mill next door to an existing Norampac operation in Niagara Falls.
Total cost is estimated at US$430MM. The project will begin construction in July 2011 creating 108 jobs and is slated for completion in the summer of 2013.
The plant’s single machine is 833 centimeters (328 inch) wide and will be able to produce three rolls of corrugated product, making it profitable to run in all market cycles.
The new mill is expected to annually produce 500,000 tonnes of containerboard, restoring the production removed in 2005 with the closure of Cascades’ mill in Red Rock, Ont.
For Cascades, the deal provides a way of strengthening its market position in the lightweight packaging board with a large state-of-the-art facility.
It also helps to shift the Canadian firms’ cost base into the U.S., where the firm has many of its corrugated packaging plants. When the new Greenpac mill comes on stream, it will lower Norampac’s Canadian production from 75 per cent to 51 per cent, while linerboard production will double to 49 per cent.
Greenpac will be operated as a separate entity. Cascades will take a 59.7 per cent equity stake, with the Caisse getting 20.2 per cent, and Jamestown Container and an the unidentified industry partner garnering a 20.1 per cent share.
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