Catalyst Paper invests $2.7 million at Biron, Wisconsin mill

TORONTO (Scrap Monster): Catalyst Paper Corporation has decided to make an investment of $2.7 million in its Biron, Wisconsin mill. The investment is aimed at improving the operational efficiency and reducing the environmental impacts at these facilities.

The company press release stated that the fuel source of Biron’s #4 boiler equipment will be converted from high-sulphur coal to natural gas. The conversion will also help the company to meet the Maximum Achievable Control Technology standard set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In addition, the TMP reboiler will be modified to reduce the consumption of coal and natural gas by reclaiming unused waste stream from the thermo mechanical pulping process to heat fresh water supplying the paper machines.

The two projects are expected to deliver significant environmental benefits, by substantially reducing the emission of particulates and green house gases. Lucas McLeod, Vice President & General Manager noted that the two projects mark an important milestone in mill’s history. He further noted that the projects will result in enhanced operational benefits for the company. The investment is in line with the company’s continuous improvement strategy, he added.

The #4 boiler conversion works are expected to commence by February next year and is expected to complete by end-April. Meantime, modification works on TMP reboiler is already under progress and is expected to be completed by October this year.

Last week, the company had announced permanent shutdown of Paper Machine No 9 at the Power River Mill. The machine had not been in operation since December 2014. With this, the Power River Mill now has only one paper machine.

Recently, the company was included in the ‘2016 Best 50 Corporate Citizens in Canada’ Award by the Corporate Knights magazine. The company was ranked 44^th in the list with an overall score of 47%. The award was in recognition of its outstanding performance against various sustainability indicators including energy productivity, carbon productivity, water productivity, waste productivity, tax score, pension fund score etc., The company had achieved 39% reduction in company-wide medical incident rate over the past five years. Catalyst had also reported 5.6% efficiency increase in Powell River PM #10. Also, the company’s sustainability initiatives have helped it to reuse 44% of its solid waste beneficially across various facilities.

Meantime, the company reported dismal set of earnings for the second quarter of the current year, recording a net loss of $26.6 million and a net loss before specific items of $27.3 million. This is in comparison with net earnings of $16.9 million and a net loss before specific items of $5.1 million in the previous quarter. The adjusted EBITDA during the quarter stood at negative $5.3 million as against $17.1 million during the previous quarter. The company cited several reasons including stronger Canadian dollars, lower production and sales volume, countervailing duty impact on supercalendered paper exports and rising energy costs for the disappointing operating results during Q2 this year.

About Catalyst Paper

Catalyst Paper Corporation is a pulp and paper company based in the Canadian city of Richmond, British Columbia. It operates five pulp mills and paper mills, producing a combined 1.8 tonnes of paper and 500,000 tonnes of market pulp annually. Catalyst Paper manufactures diverse printing papers such as coated freesheet, C1S, coated and uncoated groundwood, newsprint, directory, as well as market pulp. Customers include retailers, publishers and commercial printers in North America, Latin America, the Pacific Rim and Europe.