paperloop.com
SAN FRANCISCO, July 17, 2001 (paperloop.com) - Samoa Pacific Cellulose, LLC said yesterday it would restart production at its 200,000 tonne/yr pulp mill in Northern California about 10 days ahead of schedule. The shutter, which began June 23, is slated to end Friday, said a company source.
"We had projected around a month of downtime," said the source, who indicated that Samoa Pacific's downtime would still total about 17,700 tonnes for the third quarter. Based on the mill's capacity, it will have lost about 15,500 tonnes during the 27-day shutter. 
"We would hope not to go down again for the year. Four weeks (of market related downtime) was projected but we didn't know if it would slide another week or not." 
The Samoa mill produces 100 percent chlorine-free processed (TCF) bleached and unbleached softwood and hardwood kraft pulps. The official noted that the mill will "do as much bleached pulp as we can sell" as it moves to supply more specialized pulps and less commodity tonnage, which has taken the largest hit in prices both in the U.S. and Asia. Roughly 50 percent of the mill's output is sold to Asian markets.
"We've been looking for better markets and developing new customers and maintaining our current ones," said the source. "U.S. prices seem a little better for what we're doing, more specialty in the U.S. Unfortunately, unbleached is in demand in Asia where it's commodity."