OSB plant in Baileyville back in operation

BAILEYVILLE – More than 100 hourly and salaried employees were back at work Tuesday at Louisiana-Pacific Corp.’s oriented strand board mill.

The mill, which had been idle for nearly 10 months, started up last week. On Tuesday the smokestacks were puffing and the machinery was chewing the bark off logs.

LP Plant Manager Clint Shilts said the company has spent $1.5 million on the mill to date and expects to invest $13 million over five years.

Shilts said 95 hourly and 22 salaried employees had been hired. He said many of the employees had worked for the mill’s former owner, Georgia-Pacific Corp. Some former OSB employees chose not to return to work.

LP says it is the world’s largest OSB manufacturer, producing 6 billion square feet each year. The company, based in Portland, Ore., bought the Washington County mill from G-P in August 2002.

“It is great news that they are running the OSB plant and put a lot of people back to work,” said Town Manager Jack Clukey. “They indicated their goal was to invest in the plant and run it year-round,” he said. “You couldn’t ask for better news.”

The OSB mill had been idle for a few months before the sale. Shortly after LP assumed ownership, it announced that it planned to keep the mill closed, blaming the shutdown on market conditions.

Now, LP plans call for the mill to operate 12 months a year, unlike the on-again off-again production schedule under former owners.

In January, union workers reached an agreement with LP that allowed the company to reopen the mill. Although few details of the agreement were released, wages basically remained the same.

LP has a prominent operation in New Limerick that recently marked 20 years in the business of making oriented strand board. OSB is a plywoodlike wood made from wafers of wood. LP also owns a mill in Houlton.

Shilts, who most recently ran LP operations at an OSB mill in Montrose, Colo., said Tuesday it was business as usual at the mill. “We are still working the bugs out and coming up to speed,” he said. “We are budgeted to well exceed the production that the plant did make when G-P owned it.”

He said G-P produced 220 million square feet a year. Under LP the Baileyville facility expects to produce 270 million square feet a year.

In another change, the familiar G-P blue stripe on the edge of the board is now orange, LP’s color.