High energy costs push some mills to idle machines
Some Maine paper companies are limiting production or shutting down parts of their mill as the recent cold snap has caused a spike in wholesale prices for natural gas and electricity.
The Portland Press Herald reported that Huhtamaki Inc.’s molded-fiber mill in Waterville expects to idle machines and send workers home for part of this winter and the UPM paper mill in Madison, which is switching from liquefied to pipeline natural gas, has adjusted its output in response to the rising energy costs.
On Dec. 14, for example, the paper reported that New England businesses paid around four times more for wholesale gas than businesses around New York City and 10 times more than businesses closer to the Marcellus shale natural gas deposits in Pennsylvania.
The newspaper reported that the cold weather has also raised electricity costs, which the Waterville mill said has made it unprofitable for the mill to run at certain times. A spokesman for Verso Paper told the Press Herald that the company has not shut down any operations in response to high energy costs, but that the company has had to adjust for a budget that did not project such high costs so early in the winter.
Tom Welch, chairman of the Maine Public Utilities Commission, told the paper that cold weather is likely to have severe impacts on energy costs without some relief on supply constraints to the region.
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