VANCOUVER, B.C. — Interfor Corp. has purchased sawmills in Longview and at the Port of Tacoma less than five months after closing its mills in Beaver and Forks.
The Canadian company paid nearly $95 million for Simpson Lumber Co.’s mills in Washington state; Meldrim, Ga.; and Georgetown, S.C.
Simpson mills in Shelton were not part of the deal, which Interfor announced Thursday.
The Longview and Tacoma (Commencement Bay) mills have a “different fiber basket” — or timber supply — from the Forks and Beaver operations, said Karen Brandt, spokeswoman for Interfor in Vancouver.
“In Port Angeles [where Interfor operates a mill at 243701 W. U.S. Highway 101], we produce hemlock and Douglas fir kiln-dried studs,” Brandt said. “Beaver produced hemlock and Doug fir dimension lumber.
“Commencement Bay produces dimension, and Longview produces green —not kiln-dried — Doug fir studs.”
Also, she said, closing the Beaver and Forks mills enabled Interfor to consolidate its operations in Port Angeles and increase production.
“We’ve got some plans for that mill that are going to improve efficiency, improve productivity,” she said.
Fifty-two workers at the Beaver sawmill and 35 more at the Forks planer mill were affected by the closures.
Brand said about 40 of them have relocated to the Port Angeles mill or to Interfor sites in Oregon and Georgia.
80 ship loads
Interfor’s new acquisitions, the corporation said, have a combined annual lumber capacity of 750 million board feet.
The company expects them to produce 555 million board feet by the end of this year.
Its total capacity in the Northwest and Southeast could produce 1.2 billion board feet and is expected to produce 900 million board feet, or about two-thirds its capability.
For comparison purposes, that production will total more than 130 times what the 610-foot bulk cargo ship Astoria Bay carried off in October from the Port of Port Angeles — 6.9 million board feet of softwood logs harvested from Merrill & Ring timberlands in Western Washington and bound for Tianjin, China.
The 13 log ships that visited Port Angeles Harbor in 2012 carried off about 66 million board feet of logs, or nearly 9,800 truckloads, according to port records.
________
Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.
