The premier ended his day in Prince Albert, where he got a closer look at the pulp mill that is getting set to re-open.
The meeting marked a new look and a new direction for the Prince Albert Pulp Mill. Premier Brad Wall helped unveil its new sign. He says the plan to turn the mill into a dissolving pulp plant is an exciting step for the province.
"This will be quite innovative in terms of the product because we're talking about pulp for fabrics, for rayon, so its cutting edge," says Wall.
Paper Excellence, a Netherlands-based company, purchased the mill back in March. They're in the process of re-equipping the mill to produce dissolving pulp. The company's vice president Ed Roste says it's taking them longer than planned to get the new equipment. "The delivery time on the equipment is pretty long because it's made in western Canada and all the fabricating shops are pretty busy, so we find that the schedule has slipped a couple months already."
Paper Excellence is also in preliminary talks with SACAW, the group that controls the allocation of wood in the area. The company says this group has nine different shareholders that they have to negotiate with. They expect these negotiations to take some time.
"We have to develop more commercial relationships with all the shareholders in order to secure fiber for the mill. That's a large process that will take place over the next 12 to 16 months," says Roste.
The company plans to begin operations at the mill in September, 2012. Once operational, the mill will employ 250 people. They expect most of the employees will be former mill workers returning to the city. The premier says this is a big step in rejuvenating the province's forest industry. "It's going to keep our province moving forward, that's finding new legs and new strength in forestry."
There are now 20 employees at the mill. Paper Excellence is hiring more staff to bring that number up as they get closer to the start of operations..
