St. Mary's Paper

St. Marys Paper Ltd. is a manufacturer of pulp and paper, with its mill located in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada. The mill is situated on the St. Marys River waterfront, just east of Essar Steel Algoma.

History

At one time it was an Abitibi mill, used for research and development, but was sold to a private investor, Dan Alexander, who invested heavily in a new paper machine (#5). The company went bankrupt and was operated for several years by Ernst & Young. A private investor, Ron Stern, of [http://www.belgraviafsg.com/ Belgravia Investments] , purchased the mill and made the facility viable with the assistance of the employees, the Ontario government and the TD Bank.

The mill is now a major employer in Sault Ste. Marie. However in 2004 and in late 2005 due to the country's hardships with the forestry industry, many mills have been forced to close and lay off employees. This was the case with St. Mary's Paper which on December 14, 2005 announced it was laying off an additional 14 employees. In 2004 the mill laid off 50 employees to help with cost cutting initiatives.

In the year 2006, the mill operated with 380 employees. Furthermore, in 2006 the company announced a 20% reduction in pay for employees due to the forest industry's rising energy costs and lack of government support for the forestry industry in Canada. The company indicated that the pay reduction was intended to help avoid further layoffs and keep the Sault Ste. Marie paper mill in operation unlike many other mills across Ontario and Canada which had been forced to close during this timeframe.

On October 25, 2006, St. Mary's Paper announced that it filed under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) in Toronto. The mill was seeking protection due to bankruptcy and indicated its confidence that the operation could be restructured. St. Mary's Paper cited the high Canadian dollar and rising energy costs for its declaration of bankruptcy. The legislation that the company has filed under is the same legislation that Algoma Steel, a neighbouring manufacturer located in the same municipality, filed under in 2001. The mill continued operations and supply to its customers at the time of filing.

On February 19, 2007, Sault Ste. Marie City Council reported that they would forgive St. Mary's Paper's $386,000 in municipal taxes that were owing. St. Mary's wanted to have a much larger amount forgiven but Council advised that it was the best they could do. The agreement was conditional based upon St. Mary's ability to reach an arrangement with their unions by 20. February 2007 and continuing operations in Sault Ste. Marie.

No agreement was reached between St. Mary's Paper management in time and, consequently, in April 2007, the mill was completely shut down. The shut down caused the loss of an estimated 400 jobs in the community and was expected to have a negative impact on the city's economy.

However, in June 2007 the mill was reopened under new ownership and began making paper again for its customers in the United States. The mill called back 195 workers of its original workforce of 380 people to restart operations on paper machine No.5. Paper machines numbers 3 and 4 were intended to come back online by August 2007. This was inntended to cause the recall of most of the remaining workers who had not yet returned. The news of the mill's reopening was welcomed by the community.

On August 8, 2007, St. Mary's announced that all 3 paper machines were back online and almost all of the laid off workers had returned. Announcements were also made about the building of the cogeneration plant to help curb electricity costs for the mill. A joint venture with Essar Steel Algoma on this project was being considered to save on building costs.

St. Mary's Paper's mill is insured by FM Global.

Products manufactured

This mill produces SCA premium, SCA and SCB paper grades under the trade names "Sequence", "Sequel" and "Synpress". Paper produced at the mill is primarily purchased by magazine publishers and large retail companies for high quality advertising inserts, flyers and catalogues.

Process

St. Mary's Paper operates a 240,000 tons per year paper mill. It is a supercalendar grade paper mill with three paper machines. Calendar and supercalendar processes are described [http://www.essortment.com/family/papermillequip_swbw.htm here] .

Image gallery

External links

* [http://www.stmarys-paper.com/index.htm St. Mary's Paper Ltd - Official website]
* [http://www.sootoday.com/content/news/full_story.asp?StoryNumber=20448 Sootoday article on bankruptcy filing Wednesday, October 25, 2006]
* [http://www.soonews.ca/viewarticle.php?id=11438 Soonews article entitled St. Mary's Paper Begins To Shut Down dated Tuesday, March 20, 2007, 4:21PM]
* [http://www.soonews.ca/viewarticle.php?id=12403 Soonews article entitled St. Marys Paper Could Be Rolling Out Paper By June 15 dated Friday, May 18, 2007, 4:01PM]
* [http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/section_node/0,1042,sid%253D122325,00.html Deloitte & Touche Monitoring Reports]
* [http://blog.tonymartin.ca/2007/05/15/st-marys-paper/ "Tony's Blog" on St. Mary's Paper]
* [http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/1996/1996rcs1-3/1996rcs1-3.html Supreme Court of Canada Judgment ST. Marys Paper Inc. (Re), (1996) 1 S.C.R. 3 dated January 22, 1996]
* [http://www.tonymartin.ca/news/tony-martin-stands-with-st-mary-s-paper-workers-to-protect-pensions Tony Martin, MP show of support for Union Workers]
* [http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/166979290.html Entrepreneur.com Article entitled Re-start for St. Marys. dated July, 2007]
* [http://reports.fja.gc.ca/en/2002/2002fct649/2002fct649.html Belgravia Investments vs. Canada]
* [http://www.belgraviafsg.com/ Belgravia Investments Homepage]