Great Northern halts production, idling 75

MILLINOCKET – Four days after Great Northern Paper Inc. started up half of the paper machines at its Millinocket mill, company officials announced another temporary production curtailment.

The production curtailment will affect about 75 employees at the Millinocket mill. Employees, whose vacation period runs from May to May, will be able to take existing vacation time or can use vacation time, according to a company official.

The latest curtailment follows a three-week shutdown.

GNP President Eldon Doody notified employees Thursday of a temporary production curtailment of two paper machines – Nos. 7 and 8 – and the off-machine coater will begin early next week.

“Due to continuing weak market conditions, we will take additional downtime,” said Doody in the notice. “The temporary production curtailment will begin early next week as soon as the orders in-hand are completed.”

Brian Stetson, GNP’s spokesman and director of environmental affairs, said the company had no estimate on the length of the temporary production curtailment.

“It all depends on market conditions, but we hope it won’t be long,” said Stetson. “This curtailment is a reflection of ongoing market conditions.”

Last week, when Doody announced the machines would be starting up again, he told employees the company would monitor orders daily to determine the machine schedules beyond April 15.

Stetson earlier said the company hoped future orders would prevent the need for any additional production curtailments.

Company officials said the temporary curtailment of part of the production at the Millinocket mill was necessitated by difficult market conditions and a shortage of orders for specialty and coated paper grades. Coated and uncoated groundwood specialty grades of paper are those typically used in advertising fliers and catalogs.