RE:RE:Shut downThanks for the compliment !
Regarding production at mill levels , I don't know exact volumes anymore but you can see the trend. I was employed in a sawmill back in 1994 and when I left that mills production went from a record that year of 108 million fbm to a record last year of 280 million fbm. From the early 2000's we created these super mills to harvest all the bug kill timber. The bug killed tree had a shelf life and if it wasn't harvested the value would have been nothing . The government gave incentives in the form of low stumpage fees to harvest this timber. Now that we are coming to an end of this available fiber we are going back to historical and in some cases lower allowable cuts than what a mill had before in certain areas . An example of this is Canfor and West Fraser each closing a mill and trading their allowable cuts in the given areas to keep their other mills alive. Canfor closed Quesnel and WFM closed Houston both h in BC. Most recently Tolko announced closing Merritt and my guess this is to help keep Kelowna alive. Now going forward the Prince George area supports several lumber companies , Dunkley ,WFM , Canfor to name a few and this area was the biggest hit by the bug kill. I have heard rumours that we will see a drop in the allowable and in some cases up to 50 percent. Now a lot of this is speculation but as I mentioned earlier about production increasing substantially there will not be enough fiber from the open market to support all these mills. Guessing , I think we could see a drop in production of approximately 500-750 million in 2017. Tolko is already taking out 250 million fbm out of production , only 500 million to go. I also think I am light. Does that help ? Also I will keep posting to create questions and debate , sure would like to hear from someone on the pulp side as I know nothing about it. I only know that Tembec put in a cogen plant and has not only lowered their electricity costs but are making money by selling said electricity on the grid. Lash