Executive director, CEO of New Brunswick's Forest Products Assn. says renewable energy, product line innovations helping province's forestry industry during tough times

Diane Keaton

LOS ANGELES , August 26, 2011 (Forestweb) – New Brunswick Forest Products Association Executive Director and CEO Mark Arsenault says expanding product lines and investments in renewable energy are providing opportunities for the province’s forestry businesses, CBC News reported Aug. 25.

The closing of NewPage Corp.’s Port Hawesbury paper mill will cut 1,000 jobs in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and indirectly affect another 3,000 jobs.

And New Brunswick has lost half of its pulp mills in seven years.

But Arsenault said he is optimistic about the forest products industry. He said mills in New Brunswick are turning to innovations that will keep them in business and that the industry is also encouraging biomass and co-generation opportunities. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have some of the highest energy costs in Canada, and excess energy could be sold.

Among innovations, Arsenault noted that AV Nackawic, with mills in Nackawic and Atholville, produces dissolving pulp and that Twin Rivers Paper Co., with a pulp mill in Edmundston and a paper mill in nearby Madawaska, Maine, makes a high-value grade of paper used in specialty applications.

The primary source of this article is CBC News, Toronto, Ontario, on Aug. 25, 2011.

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