Newton Falls Fine Paper in New York has spent US$1.5M this year to possibly restart both paper machines, includes making new products; plan needs final approvals, involves 'significant pulp and paper entity,' says company's president

Sandy Yang

LOS ANGELES , December 23, 2011 (Industry Intelligence) – Newton Falls Fine Paper Co. in Newton Falls, New York, has “most of the pieces in place” to restart possibly both paper machines; all that is needed are final approvals, said the company’s president, reported the Watertown Daily Times on Dec. 27.

The business plan has taken a year to develop following the mill’s shutdown last December.

“We’re trying to build a whole new company,” said Scott C. Travers, president of Newton Falls Fine Paper.

Negotiations with a “significant pulp and paper entity” and currently under way, he said, adding that the aim is to reach a conclusion within “the next month or so,” the Watertown Daily Times reported.

The plan would include new products for the mill, which involves retooling the paper machines, he said. The mill currently makes recycled-content coated and uncoated freesheet printing and publication papers, according to Newton Falls Fine Paper’s website.

This year, the company invested US$1.5 million in equipment intended to make the mill more competitive and work toward restarting both paper machines. The business plan also includes installation of a biomass boiler, reported the Watertown Daily Times.

Travers, who is also president of Minas Basin Pulp & Power Co. Ltd. in Hantsport, Nova Scotia, would not reveal the name or names of potential partners or what grades of paper the mill might make, other than to say that it would not be relying on fine paper.

However, the company states on its website that it is “developing customized solutions in the following product segments: coated freesheet, digital, food packaging, bristols, tags and labels, office products, flexible packaging and decorative packaging.”

The mill's shutdown last December, which caused 83 of its 101 workers to lose their jobs, was caused by a decline in advertising that uses fine paper.

The mill’s reopening plan got a boost when the region received a grant that includes $10 million to improve the rail line to the mill, which is owned by the St. Lawrence County Industrial Development Agency, the Watertown Daily Times reported.

The primary source of this article is the Watertown Daily Times, Croghan, New York, on Dec. 27, 2011.  

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