Millinocket mill will close Sept. 2
Officials at Katahdin Paper Co. today said the company would shut down its Millinocket mill indefinitely Sept. 2, according to the Bangor Daily News.
The mill's closure is not unexpected. Katahdin Paper, which is owned by Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management, in late May said the mill would shutdown in July because record oil prices had doubled the mill's fuel costs. At the time, it said the mill's 208 workers would be laid off. The mill received a short respite, however, in early July when it was announced the mill would stay open as long as the mill continued to receive orders and could maintain a positive cash flow. It seems the orders have run out. "We will keep it going to fulfill our present orders and we will shut it down," a company spokesman told the Daily News. The future of the mill's 208 employees is unknown. While most will lose their jobs, some could take jobs at the company's mill in East Millinocket, according to the paper.
However, there is some controversy surrounding Brookfield's intentions. Scott Gonya, a Millinocket town councilor and a senior tech in quality assurance at the Katahdin mill, said the mill's closure is not due to high oil prices, but to the company's desire to sell electricity. "They are simply closing us because they want to sell power and make more money," Gonya told the paper, citing figures that show the mill earned $1.2 million in July before interest and amortization on the sale of electricity that otherwise would power machinery.
The closure is indefinite and a company spokesman told the Daily News that the mill is still investigating the possibility of installing a biomass boiler to reduce the mill's dependency on oil.
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