The Mackenzie pulp mill is expected to reopen later today and bring 220 jobs to the economically hard-hit northern B.C. community.
B.C. Minister of Forests and Range Pat Bell has estimated those jobs will help spur 350 indirect jobs in logging and hauling and a further 1,000 jobs in the service industry.
AbitibiBowater had shuttered the mill in 2008.
Mackenzie Pulp Mill Development Corp. then took possession and maintained the site until a buyer could be found.
Netherlands-based Paper Excellence B.V., which is a unit of Indonesia’s Sinar Mas Group, bought the mill in April for an undisclosed sum.
Premier Gordon Campbell plans to join Bell at a news conference later today to celebrate the mill resuming production of northern bleached softwood kraft pulp.
Paper Excellence has been on a buying spree of late.
In July, it bought the assets of Howe Sound Pulp and Paper LP from Vancouver’s Canfor Corp. (TSX:CFP).
It also owns and operates a pulp mill in Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan.
“We are very pleased to have a company like Paper Excellence establish itself in B.C.,” said Bell in April. “It already has experience in Canada with its mill in Meadow Lake and the company has maintained a high level of safe profitable production and regulatory compliance.”