St. Marys Paper is still selling paper

St. Marys Paper is still making plenty of paper and selling it, says the Sault-based mill's external affairs manager Marc Dube.

"Our order book is full," Dube said at today's provincial announcement of a northern electricity transition program for St. Mary's Paper and other Northern Ontario pulp and paper operations.

Dube said that the state of the Canadian dollar and manufacturing costs have been among factors that have forced the company into Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act protection and a restructuring plan.

"This is a very important announcement to St. Marys Paper," said Dube, referring to Sault MPP David Orazietti's announcement of an energy rebate for northern mills.

The full text of a St. Marys Paper Ltd. media release follows.

************************* Northern Electricity Transition Program

St. Marys Paper Ltd. operates a groundwood pulp and supercalendared paper mill in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario which annually produces 240,000 tons of specialty paper utilized by retailers and magazine publishers for high-quality advertising inserts, flyers, magazines and catalogues.

Groundwood pulping is an environmentally friendly process that utilizes a large amount of electrical energy to convert wood to pulp.

Electrical energy is one of the most critical controllable costs in St. Marys Paper Ltd.'s business model and an area where the facility has had a significant cost disadvantage when compared to its North American competition.

Over the past four years, St. Marys Paper Ltd. has completed many operational and capital improvement projects to help utilize electrical and other energy sources in as efficient a manner as possible.

"We have contracted external auditing companies to benchmark our energy use and programs, and to compare them to other pulp and paper facilities. Our results are always at the top of the chart which is a credit to our employees' efforts to manage energy use wisely." according to John Beatty, mill manager.

The company also participates in the province's Emergency Load Reduction Program and Demand Response Program which are energy conservation programs that pay for curtailment efforts that help control power prices when the provincial demand and price is high.

St. Marys Paper Ltd. is confident that the new Northern Electricity Transition Program, when included with our participation in the existing and planned energy conservation opportunities, will allow the company to experience more competitive electrical energy costs until we construct a new co-generation plant.

The co-generation plant is a critical part of St. Marys plan to secure long term competitive energy costs.

"I appreciate the efforts of the Province to help our industry though these very difficult times," said Ronald Stern, president and CEO. "This program will help us deal with our electricity cost and help us move towards greater electricity efficiency."

"We have worked closely with and recognize that the efforts of the Honourable Minister of Natural Resources, Mr. David Ramsay and our local Member of Provincial Parliament, Mr. David Orazietti have been the catalyst to make this program happen. We certainly appreciate their support to help our restructuring efforts," offered Marc Dube, external affairs manager. Dube also told SooToday.com that the restructuring plan anticipates no reduction in workforce.

************************* Full SooToday.com coverage of this story

Paper mill gets break on energy, cogen plant considered Energy rebate won't save a single forestry job, union says St. Marys Paper is still selling paper