paperloop.com
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 23, 2001 (paperloop.com) - Parsons & Whittemore (P&W) began a two-week shutdown at St. Anne, its northern bleached hardwood kraft pulp mill in Nackawic, N.B., Monday due to market conditions. The outage will trim about 10,500 tonnes from the mill's supplies, or just over 16 percent of its quarterly capacity, a source at the company said.
The Rye Brook, N.Y.-based firm hadn't slated market-based curtailments this quarter but had planned about 14,000 tonnes worth of maintenance closures. The New Brunswick mill's downtime, which the source said could produce 750 tonnes/day of NBHK, brings expected third-quarter downtime at P&W to about 24,500 tonnes. 
A company official indicated that weak pricing conditions had prompted the shutdown. 
"We could sell pulp but we're not going to sell at the price," said the official, who added, "We only ship to the U.S. Northeast by truck. There's no rail siding so shipping is more expensive. We have good, long-term customers there so we made sure we had ample inventory (before shutting down)." 
Although much of St. Anne's pulp is used for photographic paper and other specialty uses, prices even for specialty grade NBHK have fallen deeply enough that freight costs have recently been more of a consideration for producers seeking to protect margins. 
A company source added that systemwide there were no further market-related downtime plans through August.