Written by Brenden Harris on Tuesday, 08 October 2013

Weyerhaeuser general manager Bill Candline says they continue to see improvements in the industry

Businesses in the forestry sector continue to see improvements. Weyerhaeuser general manager Bill Candline notes the improvements to the U.S. housing market have had a positive impact on the timerstrand mill.

“We’ve hired about 30 people over the last two years. We’ve seen some improvement in the U.S. housing market and of course, as everyone knows, our business is tied very closely to the U.S. housing market and it continues to improve about 15 to 20 per cent year over year for the last couple of years,” he said.

While the markets are improving, Candline says wet weather over the summer has had an impact on their wood supply.

“Mike Dietsch, our timberlands manager, pointed out to me that it was the wettest August since 1988 and I didn’t realize that. That’s a good reason why we don’t see too much wood in our yards. We’re running pretty hand to mouth for wood, but we expect to be able to get through that without any interruptions in production,” he said.

Weyerhaeuser and Kenora Forest Products have both noted the importance of the wood supple from the Whiskey Jack Forest, when it comes to their operations. Candline says they’ll be watching the Supreme Court Case with Grassy Narrows carefully.

“It’s close wood, it’s a fairly large chunk of our volume that we expected for the plant. It’s important that it gets resolved between the Ontario government and Grassy Narrows First Nation. Once that gets resolved that will be good news for us,” he said.

“They need to work through that. We had an agreement with the Ontario government to have that wood flow into the plant. That was the basis that the mill was built on so it’s unfortunate that it hasn’t flowed as well as expected,” he said.

Weyerhaeuser is currently running four and a half, to five days a week in order to fill their orders. They’ll be closing the plant for ten days at the end of the month for annual maintenance. – See more at: https://www.kenoraonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6625:update-from-weyerhaeuser&catid=1:local-news&Itemid=158#sthash.9H1BMOjE.iDthAK7a.dpuf