More lumber production cuts at northern B.C. sawmills

There are more curtailments scheduled for northern B.C. sawmills, this time by Canfor.

The corporation says in a release today (June 10) it plans on shutting down production at all but one of its provincially-based locations for two weeks including Prince George, Vanderhoof, Chetwynd, and Fort St. John.

However, the company says there’ll be longer clock-outs for workers at three other mills, with a predicted export loss of nearly 200 million board feet of lumber.

A four-week production cut will take place at the Houston and Plateau mills, while Mackenzie will see the longest curtailment of them all at six weeks.

This comes six days after Canfor announced it’ll be shutting down its Vavenby location entirely, reducing its number of B.C. locations to 11.

The curtailments will begin next Monday (June 17), ending on July 26.

Canfor says the cuts are due to ‘very poor lumber markets and the high cost of fibre.’

West Fraser announced its production cuts last week for the same reasons, temporarily shutting down work in Quesnel, Fraser Lake, Williams Lake, Chetwynd, and Smithers.