Just as groups in the Strait area are
looking for ways to diversify its economy, the region’s largest employer is looking
to diversify the products it manufactures. Since restarting the former NewPage paper mill in Point
Tupper in October, Port Hawkesbury Paper has been looking to expand its product
line. The year-long closure of the mill following its former
owning filing for bankruptcy protection prompted some soul-searching among
local municipal, business and development officials about the need to further
diversify the region’s economy. While the mill did reopen after obtaining
financial assistance from the province and a negotiated power rate structure,
only one of the mill’s two paper machines has been restarted and it employs
about half as many people as it did prior to shutdown. Speaking at the Strait Ahead conference in Port Hawkesbury
on Thursday, mill development manager Marc Dube said the forestry sector has
been in decline for more than a decade, although there will remain a need for
paper. Since restarting, the mill’s supercalendered paper machine has begun
making a new higher-brighter grade of paper under the product name Artisan that
has been accepted by the market beyond expectations. It is the only mill that
makes a product with 35 per cent clay in it. It replaces coated paper. They had estimated that Artisan could make up about 15 per
cent of orders. “It’s really exciting, the marketplace loves it,” Dube said.
“About 25 per cent of our orders today are coming in that grade and we should
be at 50 or 60, because we could be easily, but we made commitments to people
on other paper sales.” The machine has proven to be the most efficient of its kind
in the world, and its thermomechanical pulp plant is the top-producing plant
globally, creating the best-quality pulp. “Even with all of that, it’s not simple to do business in
North America in pulp and paper today,” he said. Owner Ron Stern gave the mill the challenge to find an equal
amount of revenue from other sources. They can’t do that by restarting the
idled newsprint machine because the market for the product is not there, he
said. Instead, they are looking areas such as using some waste streams to
produce methane to be used as fuel for the biomass boiler. In order to ensure the mill is sustainable its business has
to evolve and move into the bioeconomy sector, Dube said in an interview,
adding that was something they focused on in discussions with the province
prior to reopening the mill.
